IN THIS ISSUE: ACES | communications | FAA | LAS | GSLIS | LAS & ENG | C-U Humanitarian Awards |
agricultural, consumer and environmental sciences
Robert L. Thompson, Gardner Chair in Agriculture Policy in the department of agricultural and consumer economics, served for the past year as co-chair of the Task Force on U.S. Agriculture Policy of the Chicago Council on World Affairs. This independent task force, which was convened in September 2005 and comprised 30 prominent leaders and policy specialists from Chicago, the Midwest and the nation, also included Robert Easter, dean of the College of ACES.
The goal of the task force was to develop a report of findings and recommendations on how to achieve sectorwide reform focused on ensuring the long-term competitiveness and sustainability of the U.S. agriculture and food systems.
To download the report, go to www.thechicagocouncil.org.
communications
Chris Benson, professor of journalism, received the Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism (documentary television, 2005) for “Paper Trail: 100 Years of the Chicago Defender.” The award was presented in the spring; the documentary was broadcast on WTTW-Channel 11, the PBS affiliate in Chicago. Benson also recently earned four regional Emmy nominations and is named on two of them, for writing and historical documentary.
Norman Denzin, College of Communications Scholar and research professor of sociology and of communications, delivered the 2006 Distinguished Lecture to the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction in Montreal in August. The lecture was titled, “The Secret Downing Street Memo and the Politics of Evidence.”
Matt Ehrlich won an award for the top faculty research paper from the radio-television journalism division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Ehrlich’s book, “Journalism in the Movies,” has been issued in paperback by the UI Press.
Rich Martin, a professor of journalism, was awarded a U.S. Speaker and Specialist Grant from the U.S. State Department this summer to conduct workshops, participate in meetings and give lectures to journalism students and local journalists in Bangladesh for three weeks in July. He spoke to an estimated 175 students and more than 150 journalists at three universities, four newspapers, two news services and three professional journalism organizations. Martin discussed topics ranging from basic journalism principles and ethics to investigative reporting, public affairs journalism and coverage of elections and politics.
fine and applied arts
Thomas H. Schleis, lecturer in the School of Music, has received the Excellence in Teaching and Faculty Service Award from the University Continuing Education Association for his contribution to the field of continuing education.
The program is designed to provide recognition to people who have created new and successful programs or who have made a major contribution to the field of adult/continuing education through either service, research or publication; to provide recognition to creative and innovative credit and noncredit programs in the field; and to communicate ideas regarding successful programs among member institutions.
For 25 years Schleis has taught a variety of short courses in the Office of Continuing Education’s community noncredit programs, Elderhostel programs, and senior scholars programs while managing a full-time academic teaching schedule and coordinating the Illinois Opera Program.
liberal arts and sciences
Kimberly Hughes, professor of animal biology, will serve as a member of the Genetic Variation and Evolution Study Section, Center for Scientific Review for the National Institutes of Health. Study sections review grant applications submitted to the NIH national advisory council or board and survey the status of research in their fields of science. Members are selected on the basis of their demonstrated competence and achievement in their scientific discipline as evidenced by the quality of research accomplishments, publications in scientific journals, and other significant scientific activities, achievements and honors.
Monica Fabiani, a professor of psychology and a faculty member at the Beckman Institute, has been elected president-elect of the Society for Psychophysiological Research. The members of this 46-year-old international society conduct research in cognitive neuroscience, behavioral medicine, social neuroscience and animal biopsychology. The society’s purpose is to foster research on the interrelationships between the physiological and psychological aspects of behavior.
John Katzenellenbogen, Swanlund Professor of Chemistry, received the 2007 American Chemical Society E.B. Hershberg Award for important discoveries in medicinally active products, sponsored by Schering-Plough Research Institute. The award is presented “to recognize and encourage outstanding discoveries in the chemistry of medicinally active substances…(that) have been made during the last two decades.” This award recognizes Katzenellenbogen’s pioneering work in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology.
Paul C. Lauterbur, the Distinguished University Professor of Medical Information Sciences, was awarded the 2007 Mike Hogg Award by the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Lauterbur will deliver his award address in Houston in spring 2007. Lauturbur’s current work is directed toward understanding the origins of life, particularly, pursuing the hypothesis that molecular imprinting was involved in connecting prebiotic chemistry to early biology.
Don Ort, professor of plant biology, has been awarded the American Society of Plant Biologists’ Charles F. Kettering Award in recognition of his excellence in the field of photosynthesis. In addition to investigating plant responses to global atmospheric change, he helped explain how light energy is transformed into chemical energy, which is then used by plants to make biomass, such as carbohydrates and food. He was a key leader in the development of an open-air, gas concentrating field system, SoyFACE, which is able to fumigate large areas of crop plants with enriched levels of carbon dioxide or ozone.
Denise Park, professor of psychology and in the Beckman Institute, received a 10-year MERIT Award (Method to Extend Research in Time) from the National Institutes of Aging to conduct research on brain structure and function in a lifespan sample of adults. Fewer than 5 percent of NIH-funded scientists receive MERIT awards, which are given to researchers with a proven record of scientific excellence and productivity over the previous 10 years.
The LAS General Curriculum Center has been selected as one of four winners nationwide to receive the 2006 Outstanding Institutional Advising Program Award from the National Academic Advising Association. The advising team recently has branched out to offer advising hours in satellite locations such as residence halls and the Undergraduate Library.
Christopher M. Armstrong, of the center, also was named one of six winners nationwide of the “Outstanding New Adviser Certificate of Merit.” He helped to initiate the satellite-office counseling program and has contributed to the center’s electronic newsletter for students.
library and information science
Illinois’ Graduate School of Library and Information Science and its partner, Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, have won the Sloan Consortium’s (Sloan-C) 2006 Effective Practice Award.
The award recognizes the schools’ distance education consortium called Web-Based Information Science Education, or WISE. Created in 2004, WISE was one of three recipients of the Effective Practice Award.
Over the past two years, WISE has enrolled 198 students in 133 courses, and it continues to increase the quality, access and diversity of online education opportunities in library and information science, the announcement said.
WISE schools, in addition to Illinois and Syracuse, are Rutgers, Simmons and Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) and the universities of British Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Pittsburgh, Texas at Austin, Western Ontario and Wisconsin at Milwaukee.
The award will be presented Nov. 8 in Orlando during Sloan-C’s 12th annual international conference on online learning, this year titled “The Power of Online Learning: Realizing the Vision.”
liberal arts and sciences / engineering
Ralph Nuzzo, the William H. and Janet G. Lycan Professor of Chemistry, and John Rogers and Etienne Menard, both UI professors of materials science and engineering, have won a 2006 Wall Street Journal technology innovation award for their company, Semprius Inc. Their achievement will be honored at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, Calif.
C-U International Humanitarian Awards
Three UI faculty members received the Champaign-Urbana International Humanitarian Award at a reception Oct. 18 at the Hilton Garden Inn, Champaign.
Winners for this year:
Melvin Wagner, professor emeritus of agricultural and consumer economics, and his late wife, Caroline Cramer Wagner, were honored in the hospitality category. The Wagners came to UI in 1968 after encouraging scholars in Thailand and India to complete doctoral degrees and develop highly professional research systems in their universities. They welcomed numerous visitors from other countries through efforts with the Cosmopolitan Club, International Hospitality Club and the University YMCA. “Mel and Caroline Wagner personified together the caring attitudes and loving behavior toward the strangers in our midst or on other shores,” said nominator John Van Es.
Professor Kimiko Gunji, director of the UI Japan House, was honored in the research and education category. Gunji has been educating students, faculty members and the community in the study and practice of Japanese arts since 1973. Since she became the director of Japan House, her educational activities have extended to the local community. She was nominated for the award based on her instruction, outreach and public service in an effort to bring people into a spiritual connection with arts and understanding.
Earl D. Kellogg, professor in International Programs and Studies, was honored in the humanitarian outreach category. His outreach began in 1971 when he started working to increase agricultural productivity and rural employment while protecting the environment. He has managed international projects in agricultural productivity, forestry, natural resource management, rural employment and enterprise development, renewable energy, women’s leadership development and water resources and irrigation. In 1997 he was named UI associate provost for international affairs.
The C-U Humanitarian Awards were created in 2003 to honor individuals whose work has contributed significantly to international understanding, cooperation, friendship and development and to recognize the richness of Champaign County’s international contributions, concerns and commitments in a variety of areas and to educate the public about the connections that exist between the local and global community.
