Five UI faculty members have been named 2012-13 fellows of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation's Academic Leadership Program.
The Academic Leadership Program provides leadership development for accomplished faculty members who may be interested in academic administration. Since 1989, many of the program's nearly 1,000 fellows have gone on to serve in leadership roles such as college presidents, provosts and deans.
"(The program) introduces faculty to issues and challenges in higher education," said Barbara Wilson, the vice provost for academic affairs and the campus CIC liaison. "It also gives (the fellows) an opportunity to visit peer institutions and meet with leaders at those insitutions, and it fosters connections to faculty in similar positions at other Big Ten universities."
Fellows are selected by CIC member institutions, which include the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago. Deans are asked to nominate faculty members who have shown promise or expertise in leadership activities in their colleges, schools or departments. The Office of the Provost then selects five fellows from those nominations.
"(The UI fellows) are a talented group of faculty and I am excited to work with them during the year," Wilson said. "We travel together to three Big Ten campuses so we get to know each other quite well."
The university and the CIC track the program's success as well as that of its Department Executive Officers Seminars program, an annual training and development program for department heads and chairs from member universities.
According to Wilson, the UI fellows benefit greatly from the program.
"From what (the fellows) tell me, the experience of traveling to other campuses, talking with academic leaders about issues in higher education and getting to know each other - all of it is invaluable," Wilson said.
The 2012-13 CIC Fellows:
Jennifer T. Bernhard is a professor of electrical and computer engineering. Bernhard has been a faculty member in the Electromagnetics Laboratory since 1999. In August, she was appointed associate dean for research in the College of Engineering.
Her research group focuses on the development and analysis of multifunctional reconfigurable antennas and their system-level benefits as well as the development of antenna synthesis and packaging techniques for electrically small, planar, and integrated antennas for wireless sensor and communication systems.
Bernhard has been recognized through the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Award and is also a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. She was recognized with the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society's H.A. Wheeler Prize Paper Award, and in 2008, she served as the president of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society.
Germán A. Bollero is the head of crop sciences and a professor of biometry in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. After earning M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1993 and 1994 at the UI, he continued his association with the department of agronomy as a postdoctoral research associate and a senior research specialist in agriculture. He joined the college in 1998 as an assistant professor of biometry and cropping systems.
A native of Rosario, Argentina, Bollero is internationally recognized for his scholarship in biometry. In addition, he is an award-winning teacher. He has been included on the Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students 17 times. Among other recognitions, he has received several college awards, was selected as a member of the ACES Academy of Teaching Excellence and was in the first class of the ACES Global Connect program.
Feng Sheng Hu is the department head and a professor of plant biology and of geology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Hu earned his Ph.D. at the University of Washington in 1994, and was a postdoctoral fellow with the National Science Foundation Research Training Group on Paleorecords of Global Change at the University of Minnesota. In 2000, Hu was recognized as one of the most creative young faculty members in the nation when he was awarded a David and Lucille Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering. He was named a University Scholar at the UI in 2005. In 2006-2007, he was named a Fulbright Scholar at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research. Hu was elected a fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science in 2008. His research integrates biological, geological and atmospheric sciences. Hu and his students have tackled a number of long-standing questions regarding climatic change and ecological response at multiple spatial and temporal scales. He has written more than 90 peer-reviewed articles published in top-tier journals, including Science, Nature and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Helen Neville is a professor of educational psychology and of African American studies. She served as a Provost Fellow from 2010-2012. She is the lead editor of the "Handbook of African American Psychology" and is a past associate editor of The Counseling Psychologist and of the Journal of Black Psychology.
Neville has been recognized widely for her research, teaching and mentoring efforts. She received the American Psychological Association's Kenneth and Mamie Clark Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Professional Development of Ethnic Minority Graduate Students in 1997 and the Charles and Shirley Thomas Award for mentoring and contributions to African American students and the community in 2009. She also was recently honored with the Association of Black Psychologists' Distinguished Psychologist of the Year award.
Richard T. Rodríguez is a professor of English and the interim chair of Latina/o studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Rodríguez earned his B.A. in English at the University of California at Berkley and his Ph.D. in the history of consciousness at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Rodríguez's research focuses on Latina/o cultural studies, literary and film studies, critical theory and gender studies. He is the author of numerous articles and reviews. His book, "Next of Kin: The Family in Chicano/a Cultural Politics" (Duke University Press), won the 2011 National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Book Award. A recipient of the LAS Academic Advising Award, Rodríguez recently was named a Conrad Humanities Scholar, a designation supporting the work of exceptionally promising associate professors in the humanities at the UI. He is currently completing a book on Latino visual representation and the politics of social space.
