Courtney Dwyer Satkoski

Courtney Dwyer Satkoski is an Instructor II in FGCU’s Department of Integrated Studies, where she has taught more than a dozen distinct courses since 2007. She is the founder of two nonprofit organizations, Hunting For A Cure and Unlocked Memories, and serves as Coordinator of the Honors College Mentor Program. In addition, she advises multiple student organizations, including Global Medical Brigades, leading students each May on international medical brigades that integrate service, leadership development, and global health engagement.

Courtney Dwyer Satkoski has served as an Instructor II in the Department of Integrated Studies since 2007, teaching for nearly two decades within the College of Arts and Sciences and the Honors College. During that time, she has taught more than a dozen courses centered on community engagement, humanities and social issues, and servant leadership. Her course portfolio includes Foundations of Civic Engagement, Honors Mentor Leadership, Senior Seminar, and other integrative studies offerings designed to connect academic theory with applied civic responsibility. Her classroom model prioritizes experiential learning, leadership development, and purposeful engagement, ensuring students graduate with both intellectual depth and a strong commitment to community impact.

Satkoski plays a significant leadership role within the FGCU Honors College as a Faculty Fellow, Executive Board Member, and Coordinator of the Honors College Mentor Program. In this capacity, she oversees approximately 50 Honors College Mentors and supports all incoming Honors students. Under her direction, student mentors complete the Honors Mentor Leadership course, where they learn mentoring theory, best practices, and leadership strategy. Mentors then apply those principles by guiding peers and serving as site leaders and volunteers for major campus and community-wide initiatives, including Week of Welcome (W.O.W.) and Make A Difference Day (M.A.D.D.). Her leadership structure creates a scalable mentoring framework that integrates academic preparation with hands-on civic leadership.

Community impact is central to Satkoski’s professional work. In 2009, she founded the FGCU Malaria Project in partnership with the Jimmy Carter Center. Within just six weeks, the initiative successfully provided bed nets to 89,000 individuals living in the village of Kanke, Nigeria, demonstrating both rapid mobilization and measurable global impact. She also serves as Faculty Advisor for Global Medical Brigades, traveling each May with students to Panama, Honduras, and Guatemala to participate in international medical brigades. These experiences provide students with direct exposure to global health systems while reinforcing service-learning principles rooted in ethical engagement and cultural awareness.

Satkoski has founded and co-founded nonprofit organizations that extend her educational philosophy beyond the classroom. Five years after launching the Malaria Project, she founded Hunting For A Cure in partnership with Project Alive. The organization hosts fundraisers and make-a-wish style events for patients with Hunter Syndrome and contributed to raising $2.5 million to fund a clinical trial believed to be a potential cure. As part of these efforts, Satkoski and eight cyclists completed a two-day, 100-mile ride across the state of Florida, gaining national attention and raising nearly $100,000 to support research and awareness.

In 2021, she co-founded Unlocked Memories, a nonprofit that creates special events and weekly volunteer opportunities connecting FGCU students directly with patients living with dementia. These initiatives are complemented by her advisory work with multiple student organizations, including The Service Learning Club, THE Big C, Jewish Student Union, Alpha Epsilon Pi, FGCU Medi-Futures (a joint initiative with the University of Florida that provides physician shadowing opportunities), and Global Medical Brigades. Her passion for hosting large-scale blood and bone marrow drives, held in honor of her son and mother, has resulted in numerous state records, hundreds of first-time and returning donors, and thousands of lives saved.

Satkoski has received more than 60 state and national awards recognizing excellence in community engagement, leadership, advising, and teaching. Among these honors are the National Collegiate Honors Council Community Engagement National Project of the Year, WINK TV’s Person of the Year, FGCU Instructor Teaching Excellence of the Year, FGCU Faculty Service Excellence of the Year, the National Society of Leadership and Success Educator of the Year, a three-time Dr. Helen Mamarchev Distinguished Advisor of the Year award recipient, and the 2017 Engaged Faculty of the Year for all Florida Universities—marking FGCU’s first nominee and winner for that distinction.

Her vision as an educator is rooted in a clear and enduring objective: students should graduate not merely as degree earners, but as conscious, productive, civically engaged citizens who use their education and talents to positively impact the world around them—and commit to doing so each day thereafter.