DMC Announces 2026 Recipient of Dr. Aileen Creighton Award for Teaching Excellence

Del Mar College

CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS (News Release) - During DMC’s fall convocation Aug. 17, Journalism Professor Robert Muilenburg was recognized for his impact on the lives of his students as the college’s 2026 Dr. Aileen Creighton Award for Teaching Excellence recipient in front of faculty, staff and administrators at Richardson Performance e Hall on the Heritage Campus.

Del Mar College Journalism Professor Robert Muilenburg.

He is the 24th recipient of the coveted faculty award established for its namesake, the late Dean Emeritus of Arts and Sciences and English Professor Dr. Aileen Creighton. Each year after the nomination and selection process, the college community learns who the recipient is through the presentation of a special video and award of a medal and plaque during convocation.

Beginning with the fundamentals of mass communication in the classroom to role-oriented courses in basic news photography, media writing, editing and layout as well as related courses such as Principles of Advertising and Introduction to Public Relations, Muilenburg’s own role is to guide budding journalists through diverse courses that prepare students for a variety of employment options.

Beyond coursework, the student lab is where much of the more nuanced learning about the world of journalism takes place with the production of the student newspaper, Foghorn News. As Adviser, Muilenburg manages the paper’s student staff, offering sage advice to those on deadline struggling with a dull headline or unsure about the quality of a photo in a news package in addition to handling more technical aspects of publishing each issue. 

Muilenburg can point to his own experience as a photographer for The Foghorn in the mid-1990s shortly after arriving at Del Mar College following his enlistment in the U.S. Army. Learning and working under then-Journalism Professor Manuel Flores, Muilenburg also built a strong relationship that would prove fortuitous in the years to come. 

“I had the great fortune of learning journalism from Dr. Manuel Flores. He taught journalism and advised Foghorn[students] for 16 years and showed me that patience and understanding could mix with hard work and high standards,” Muilenburg said of his mentor during his acceptance speech during convocation today. “As a non-traditional student at the time, his approach to teaching and mentorship was exactly what I needed and was probably the greatest factor for me to start teaching.”

DMC’s fall convocation Aug. 17, Journalism Professor Robert Muilenburg awarded the Dr. Aileen Creighton Award for Teaching Excellence at Richardson Performance Hall.

The South Dakota native first finished DMC’s Journalism Program in 1997 after serving in the military as a photographer and then earned a bachelor’s degree in photography from Texas A&M University-Commerce. He later completed a master’s degree in journalism from Murray State University in Kentucky.  

While fulfilling his educational goals and working, Muilenburg freelanced for major newspapers and area dailies, including the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and the Dallas Morning News as well as the Commercial Appeal in Memphis and The Tennessean in Nashville while working for the University of Tennessee as Photographic Services Coordinator.

In 2006, Muilenburg returned to South Texas and began teaching at DMC as a tenure-track Instructor of Journalism with the college’s Communications, Languages & Reading Department.

“Being The Foghorn Adviser for the past 20 years has been the most rewarding experience of my career. I enter each semester with a great deal of optimism about what the students can achieve, even this many years into it. It’s cautious optimism, but optimism, nonetheless,” he said. 

In addition to his college duties, Muilenburg has held several roles for the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association (TIPA), including as President in 2019-2020. He presently serves as Assistant Director of Events and Programming for TIPA. 

His drive and expertise coupled with the hard work of his students have resulted in a heap of awards – at least 287 state and national awards during the past three years.  While many faculty members offered praise and support for Muilenburg as a candidate for the Creighton Award, it’s the alumni who attested to his impact in the most profound way.

Today, Bill Eaves is employed at KIII TV3 News as a Story Desk Editor. But it wasn’t so long ago that Eaves was a newly arrived student in search of a career through Del Mar College following enlistment in the U.S. Navy and a stint as an antiterrorism officer for the U.S. Army.

“I am a disabled vet with many injuries and mental illnesses. At some point I decided to change my life and enroll in college. Mr. Muilenburg was always available and always interested in what we were working on,” Eaves wrote in his letter of support. “The Foghorn Lab became my favorite place to be. Every day there I’d get to write, learn, fail and get better because Muilenburg was always there to help us.”

Fellow alumna Ana Alldredge also launched a successful career, and today, she is a Public Relations Associate for the Corpus Christi firm KCS Public Relations.  

Her support letter states, “Professor Muilenburg will never fully know the depth of the impact he has had on my life; but I hope that one day when he looks out at everything his students have become, he understands that every dream we are living, every barrier we pushed through, and every moment we chose to keep going even when it was hard, had his name written all over it.”

And after today, that impact was honored as Muilenburg joined the 23 other Creighton Award recipients who preceded him.