Six academic professionals receive CAPE award
Six people are being honored with the 2003 Chancellor’s Academic Professional Excellence Award, designed to recognize the importance of contributions made by academic professionals. This year, as in the past 14, the CAPE Award winners were selected based on their outstanding contributions in their professional fields, to their department or unit and the campus, and for the positive impact they have had on colleagues, students and the public. A committee of 12 academic professionals – from different campus units – reviewed more than 30 nominations and unanimously recommended six people to Chancellor Nancy Cantor for recognition. The winners will be honored at an awards ceremony and reception from 4 to 5:30 p.m. April 3 in the South Lounge of the Illini Union. Anyone may attend. Each CAPE winner will receive $2,000 at the ceremony and a base salary increase of $1,000 effective Aug. 21. In addition, $1,000 will be added to their departments’ budgets for the upcoming year. This money is to be used at their discretion to benefit their workplaces. The number of CAPEs awarded was increased from three to six last year in recognition of the growing number of academic professionals on the Urbana campus and the variety of their contributions.
Paul T. Adams, director, Prairienet When Paul Adams took over as director of Prairienet in 1999, the program had a local scope and a mounting deficit. Now, four years later, it reaches well beyond UI and Champaign-Urbana and it has been in the black for two years. Prairienet is a community network run by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science that provides computers and Internet access to low-income users and the public. "Prairienet has become stronger and more stable," wrote Ann Bishop, professor of library and information science, in her nomination letter. "Paul has played a significant role in its continued vitality, indeed its survival." Also under Adams’ leadership, Prairienet combined forces with the East St. Louis Action Research Project, a program that provides computing resources for low-income communities. Adams served as interim director of the project for seven months, typically spending one to two days a week in East St. Louis. "This must have come at a great personal cost: The travel to East St. Louis took a toll on his spare time since it was on top of his work as Prairienet director," wrote Varkki George, professor of urban and regional planning. "He brings a passion to his work that is quite remarkable." In addition to these major projects, Adams set up a computer lab in the poorest county in Georgia, sent computers to support community development in Africa, and mentored and employed a local teenager whose interest in computing was sparked by Prairienet classes.
Edward N. Ballard, UI Extension educator Ed Ballard has been a UI Extension educator in animal systems in the Effingham area since 1992, but has served UI Extension for 37 years. During the past five, he has conducted 393 programs and made face-to-face contact with almost 47,000 people across the state. "With the tremendous demands on producer’s time, attracting them to educational events is more challenging than ever," wrote Jimmy H. Clark, professor of animal sciences. "But Ballard has had increasing success by developing programs that are superbly planned and timely and that provide immediately applicable information. This combination has resulted in some of the most successful animal systems educational programs in Illinois while others are experiencing a trend of reduced participation." Ballard’s primary emphasis is livestock educational programming in beef, swine, horses, forages and grazing, youth, and livestock nutrient management. The past five years he has provided state leadership in the area of forages and grazing. Through these he has pioneered numerous programs for UI Extension. In 1994 he pioneered the first Management Intensive Grazing School in Illinois, which has been emulated by his Extension colleagues and become a tool of choice for transferring new technology to livestock and forage producers. The 92 MIG schools he has developed have reached more than 7,800 people. He also has developed five training schools for UI Extension and NRCS personnel. In addition, Ballard has been instrumental in acquiring state and national grants to conduct applied research and Extension programming. "He is a blue-chip educator, a major force in the Illinois livestock and pasture industry, and a UI ambassador and professional," said Michael F. Hutjens, professor of animal science.
Mark Band, director of Functional Genomics, W.M. Keck Center for Comparative and Functional Genomics As founding director of the Functional Genomics Unit at the W.M. Keck Center for Comparative and Functional Genomics in the Biotechnology Center, Mark Band has achieved high recognition from the scientific community for his work. And the facility he established has become an indispensable component of the campus research infrastructure, wrote Harris A. Lewin, professor of animal sciences, in his nomination of Band. Lewin credits Band with contributing to the scientific success of several faculty members whose work done in Band’s lab led to large grants. In addition, results obtained in his lab already have led to high profile publications. Band also developed a short course, "Microarray Technology," to meet the high demand on campus for a course dealing with the production and use of microarrays. Band also was praised by Lewin, who said Band’s "commitment to teaching and managing his (staff) is unparalleled, and the unselfish devotion of his time to the greater goals of the Keck Center has been exemplary." Band even served as interim director of another unit, while still operating his own, when the director left for private industry. Gene Robinson, professor and director of the Neuroscience Program, wrote that Band’s "contributions have significantly enhanced the quality of our research in a high-profile field. His efforts on behalf of off-campus investigators contracting with the Keck Center have further enhanced our visibility and prominence, and constitute important service. His superb educational efforts have enabled many students and postdocs to learn a great deal about functional genomics. Through his efforts, many faculty members, myself included, are able to do better science, are more competitive for grants, and are able to take research into realms undreamed about even a few years ago."
Carol Livingstone, associate provost and director, Division of Management Information Carol Livingstone was hired in 1984 to head the newly named Division of Management Information. The new name signaled a need for the unit to assume new functions, acquire new abilities and perform new services for a constantly expanding pool of users. As its first director, Livingstone transformed the unit into a proactive office that could meet the campus’ steadily increasing needs for information gathering and sophisticated analysis to support policymaking and meet new reporting requirements. "In the current public higher education environment, the need for comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information and analysis of every aspect of the campus’s activities and operations is greater than ever before," wrote Lamar Murphy, an associate dean in the Graduate College, in nominating Livingstone. "Carol’s skills and hard work have taken our institutional research abilities to a new level, and she has created information systems and practices that have been taken as models by a number of our peer institutions." Livingstone has created a number of Web-based data reporting systems that are key information sources for units at every level. The most well known of these is the Campus Profile, which is a model for many universities of how information from multiple sources can be assembled and analyzed in order to produce a detailed picture of the resources, staffing, research efforts, instructional activities and overall performance of every department and college. Among her routine responsibilities are the analysis of data for Budget Reform every semester, which determines significant resource allocations to every campus unit. She collects and reports data about the campus for annual peer salary studies and external surveys of institutional performance. Livingstone provides data used by the Illinois Board of Higher Education every year to determine instructional costs of each degree program as part of the periodic IBHE evaluation of every campus program. In addition to producing all this information, Livingstone has devoted herself to helping administrators at every level understand how to make use of information to meet their own needs. She lectures each fall to new senior administrators on the campus’s data services and she conducts seminars every year for department heads on how to become "data savvy."
Lian Ruan, head librarian, Illinois Fire Service Institute "By her personal vision and energy, Lian Ruan converted an underused, in-house reference room into a full service library that serves communities and first responders throughout the state and has received national and international recognition for excellence," wrote Richard L. Jaehne, director of the Illinois Fire Service Institute, in his nomination letter. Ruan joined the institute in 1990 as a research information specialist and became director of the library in 1999. In 1998, the institute implemented Vision 2000 with the goal of "helping every firefighter do his/her work through training, education, information and research." Increased value was placed on outreach and technology to reach firefighters at a distance. The library has played a central role in achieving this new vision. "Because of her personal drive, enthusiasm, dedication, ingenuity and tireless efforts the IFSI Library is now a member of the state library system and has a central role in delivering training, education and information to firefighters in Illinois and is playing a key role in the institute’s growing agenda," Jaehne wrote. Ruan also has obtained many grants on behalf of the library including one to develop conceptual drawings and a feasibility study to expand the library from 700 square feet to 10,000 square feet. In addition, Ruan’s energy and vision have benefited the students of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science who have worked with her, noted Linda C. Smith, professor and formerly interim dean of the school, in a letter supporting Ruan’s nomination. "She gives generously of her time in training and mentoring the students who work with her and these students report being inspired by her example," Smith said.
Catherine Thurston, director, Office of Educational Technology As director of the Office of Educational Technology in the College of Education since the office was created six years ago, Catherine O. Thurston has been the "visionary and developer of this critical resource for the college," wrote Susan Fowler, dean of the College of Education, in a letter of support. "In the past six years, she has transformed and centralized technology services in the college and enabled faculty members and students to become educational leaders and innovators in the application and integration of technology with teaching." In her nomination of Thurston, Molly B. Tracy, associate dean for administration and technology in the college, wrote "Thurston’s office supports a comprehensive program that provides professional development for faculty members on how to integrate technology into instruction, sponsors workshops across the state, collaborates with a number of K-12 school districts on a variety of technology outreach activities and oversees all information technology resources in the college." In addition, during her time at OET, Thurston has successfully gained millions of dollars of funding to support college and faculty efforts in the area of technology. She has assumed leadership in many of these efforts, including the development and implementation of two very successful online master’s degree programs. It was her effort and initiative that began the "Moveable Feast" program. This summer institute program offers hands-on training on technology integration to teachers throughout the state and has grown tremendously during its five years. Because of Thurston’s leadership OET today – although originally conceived as a largely technical support group – is a campus leader in the development, implementation and research of the applications of technology in instruction.
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