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Faculty Award Winners in CLAHS

 

College Awards - CLAHS Faculty Winners 2007 - 2008

Excellence in Research and Creative Scholarships

  • Carol J. Burger – Women’s Studies (in Interdisciplinary Studies)

Dr. Burger, originally trained in immunology, joined Interdisciplinary Studies with a joint appointment in Biology in 1997.  Considered a prominent women’s studies scholar, she is the founding chief editor of The Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering. Burger is an accomplished grant writer;  she has been awarded 1.9 million dollars in external funding to support projects related to women in science, engineering, and technology fields. 

  • Jihyun Kim – Apparel, Housing, and Resource Management

Department chair LuAnn Gaskill states that Dr.Kim “is building an international reputation for cutting-edge textile and apparel research.”  Although she is at a relatively early in point in her career, Kim has already developed an active and successful publication and research grant writing program.  Her recent recognitions include two best research paper awards, a research excellence award, and an award for creative design.

  • Edward W. Wolfe – Educational Research, School of Education

Professor Wolfe’s research covers a range of topics within measurement and educational testing, such as the differences between mail and web-based surveys.  Since coming to Virginia Tech in 2004, he has averaged five publications per year, many in the top journals in his field. 

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Excellence in Outreach Awards

  • Carol J. Burger (Interdisciplinary Studies), Elizabeth Creamer (School of Education), and Peggy S. Meszaros (Human Development and Center for Technology Impacts on Children, Youth, and Families)

In their six years together, this team has made significant contributions to the dissemination of knowledge related to why girls do or do not choose to pursue careers in information technology.  These contributions have taken the form of 21 publications, 39 presentations, two books, a DVD, two international conferences, and four web sites.  According to their NSF program director, the team took a burning national question, found credible answers, and excelled in making the issues, their work, and the findings known. 

  • E. Thomas Ewing – History

Ewing has played a key role in a wide range of outreach activities related to improving public school teachers’ historical understanding, their awareness of globalization, and their access to new teaching materials.  For example, through Teaching American History grants over the past five years, Ewing has help Montgomery County Public Schools secure two three-year grants toward this end.  He has also been involved in separate projects related to creating resources to teach European and United States History, the Great Depression, and world history.   

  • Irene Leech – Apparel, Housing, and Resource Management

Dr. Leech has sought to improve the financial well-being of Virginians.  As one support letter states, she serves as Virginia’s “David” against the industrial “Goliaths” of the Commonwealth. Leech has served as president of the Virginia Citizens Consumer Council; she regularly participates in legislative and regulatory meetings and testifies before legislative committees. She’s also often contacted by the media and translates her knowledge in a way that connects with the general public.  In short, she is a model of informed consumer advocacy.

Diversity Awards

  • April Few (Human Development) and Anthony Kwame Harrison (Sociology)

This team was recognized for their leadership in planning and carrying out the Coordinated School Visit Program (CSVP), a program to recruit graduate students in our college through a series of coordinated trips to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).  Through this program, Drs. Few and Harrison have been successful in laying the groundwork for a sustaining structure of linkages to HBCUs that will support academic opportunity and diversity here at Virginia Tech in the years to come.  They are also simultaneously being recognized for their work on the college Campus Climate Task Force where they studied previous university and college diversity plans and what became of them.  Their recommendations are currently being implemented through support from the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

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Excellence in Administration Award

  • Nancy Metz – English

Dr. Metz’s administrative duties include the supervision of and advocacy for over 40 instructors.  In 2006 she initiated the university's effort to develop a career track policy for instructors – one that now benefits all VT instructors.  Beyond that, according to Carolyn Rude, department chair, Professor Metz has “transformed the undergraduate English major and the department’s priorities in undergraduate education by new emphases on research and student participation…

Excellence in Undergraduate Advising

  • Linda (Cathy) Skinner – English

Professor Skinner is the coordinator of undergraduate advising in the Department of English, where she advises all incoming majors and minors.  She has also lead faculty advising workshops and orientations, planned the department’s undergraduate research conference, and is the faculty advisor to a newly re-formed English fraternity.    According to one reviewer,  “Her advisees love her.”

Excellence in Graduate Student Advising

  • Paul Heilker – English

Dr. Heilker previously supervised the GTA Advising Program, organized the annual two-week orientation workshop for new GTAs, and both developed and provided 41 workshops for GTAs teaching composition.  He also advises in the department’s new doctoral program in rhetoric in writing.  In a recent panel addressing the balance of professional and personal lives, Heilker explained that he has learned to understand balance not as spending equal time on all endeavors but instead as giving 100% to whatever he is doing when he is doing it.  It is for that 100% he gives toward graduate student advising that he receives this award.

  • Shannon E. Jarrott – Human Development

Professor Jarrott routinely co-authors articles and grants with her graduate advisees, seeks funding for them, and nominates them for countless awards.  She is a tireless advocate for them.  She expects the best of them, and they usually grow to the size she sees them.  She has also applied her passion for advising to the development of a number of impressive policies and practices that have brought excellence to the Department of Human Development’s whole program of doctoral advising.

 

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Certificate of Teaching Excellence Awards

  • Carol A. Bailey – Sociology

Dr. Bailey's nominator, Dr. Trish Boyles, noted that “a recurring theme in the letters in her dossier involves Dr. Bailey’s ability to help students that are disillusioned with graduate studies, disengaged from their programs, and struggling to find the depth of meaning they expected from scholarly work.”  Bailey has the ability to connect with these students and help them thrive within programs that can be alienating at times.  Dr. Boyles notes that teaching is both an art and a science.  “Carol’s science is her rigorous devotion to scholarly research…”  Her art “consists of a unique compassion and understanding of students and the academic struggles they encounter and an authentic desire for each of them to be successful.”

  • Toni Calasanti – Sociology

Dr. Calasanti’s classes range from topics such as women’s studies to aging to social inequity. Student comments regarding her teaching included the following: "Instead of spitting out information, she challenged us" and "You are the only professor that has made me feel like I matter," there were also several versions of this: "I absolutely loved your class – the best I have ever taken."

  • Sheila Carter-Tod – English

Professor Carter-Tod works to locate, promote, and sustain diverse identities, ideas, and voices.  It is not surprising, then, that she practices dynamic, interactive student-centered learning.  According to one student, her classes are “very student driven, which creates an environment of active and adaptive learning".  It is often thought that exceptional teachers give students things to know and learn.  According to Paul Sorrentino, “Sheila Carter-Tod teaches students how to give themselves, and others, a way to learn and a way to voice that learning for a lifetime.”

  • Megan Dolbin-MacNab – Human Development

Dr. Dolbin-MacNab’s average SPOI score is 3.86.  She learns the names of her students in classes of over 100.  According to her nominator, Dr. Katherine Allen, her student comments are “phenomenal.”  The following is one example: "I’ve found your class the best one…at Virginia Tech…I was able to find what I love and want to pursue a career in.  Without your enthusiasm, I would never have given marriage and family therapy a chance.  …You have had more of an impact on my undergraduate experience than anyone."

  • Grace Kao – Religious Studies (in Interdisciplinary Studies)

Professor  Kao came to Virginia Tech in 2003, just after completing her PhD at Harvard, where she was a two-time recipient of a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, awarded by the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. Kao’s teaching “combines a variety of techniques to engage students in deliberation on ethical matters. In subtle and dialogical ways, she presents students with discussion questions that engage a majority of the class. Her reviewers recounted rich discussions that Kao created on a wide range of issues, from the ordination of women, to feminism, to preemptive war.

  • Ed Weathers – English

 Professor Weathers came to Virginia Tech with a distinguished 27-year career as a magazine editor – a career that gave him extensive and invaluable experience working with young writers.  He himself is the award-winning author of over 200 articles in dozens of magazines and newspapers.  Professor Weather’s students describe him as “one of the ‘great’ professors that comes around once in a student’s academic career.” His students credit him with their publications, their success in getting a good job, even their decision to go to law school – in essence, their sense of possibility as young adults starting out in the world. 

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  • Introduction to Posthumous Awards
    Two posthumous teaching awards were awarded to beloved faculty who were killed while teaching their classes on April 16, 2007.  They were among the best teachers in the Department of Languages and Literatures, a department that prides itself on excellent teaching. 

Jamie Bishop's teaching scores were consistently 3.9.  In the semester before we lost him, his classes all gave him 3.9.  One student writes: “I came into this course dreading it and I find that this is my favorite class now.  I have learned more than I expected and Herr Bishop is my favorite instructor this semester – not that he is easy…quite the contrary.” another said; “Herr Bishop seems to have a gift for teaching.  Each class is stimulating and full of laughs, making each moment and element of the German language memorable.  He never embarrasses a student, but simply dismisses their errors as expected mistakes so the students never feel uncomfortable.  I knew that I loved German, but I never dreamed a German class could be so hands-down enjoyable.”

 

Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, in the semester before we lost her had teaching evaluations of 3.9, 3.7, and 3.9.  One student said:“I loved having Madame Couture-Nowak as a professor.  I never had the desire to miss class, mostly because she made the class so enjoyable.  She is such an outgoing and entertaining teacher.  I would really enjoy having her in my future French courses.  She is very generous and cares a lot for her students.  Amazing person!” Another student wrote: “…the teacher is very passionate about what she is teaching and makes every effort to extend her passion to her students.”

 

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