COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES NAMES AWARD WINNERS
DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AND SERVICE AWARD WINNERS TO BE HONORED
For their contributions on the local, state, national and international levels, Rick Bayless, Frank Higginbottom, Brooke Murphy and Joseph Trimble will be recognized as the 2019 Distinguished Alumni of the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences. In addition, higher education civil rights pioneer George Henderson, whose OU career has spanned over half a century, will be honored as the 2019 Distinguished Service Award recipient for his exemplary service to the college.
Distinguished alumni award recipients will present public lectures on Thursday, March 7, 2019. Awards will be presented to all recipients at the Kaleidoscope evening event on Friday, March 8. Information about the events will be released at a later date.
For complete information on our award winners
click here
and for ticket information for Kaleidoscope evening
click here
.
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FACULTY AWARD WINNERS NAMED
Each year, the College of Arts and Sciences honors faculty who show commitment, skill, effectiveness, impact and leadership in teaching and scholarship. The award winners for this year are:
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Assistant Professor, Mathematics
Irene Rothbaum Award
Established by Julian Rothbaum in his wife’s memory, this award is given to a tenure-track assistant professor who is a model teacher and who demonstrates significant scholarly accomplishment. Wang is one of the most accomplished researchers in the history of the department. She is the second ever in the department to receive an NSF CAREER award. She revamped existing course offerings in Applied Mathematics and designed a Presidential dream course in Numerical Analysis that had more than 90 students enrolled this semester.
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Assistant Professor,
Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics
Longmire Prize for Teaching
This prize is supported through an estate gift from William and Jane Longmire and is given to a faculty member who holds the rank of assistant professor or higher and exhibits a scholarly and thoughtful approach to innovative thinking. Norris’s innovative approaches to teaching have allowed him to win two alternative textbook grants at OU: one to work on compiling and annotating a set of journal articles that could be accessible for undergraduates for Typology, and one to work on an anthology of data-driven problem-sets for Syntax. He teaches courses in General Linguistics, Typology, Phonetic Description, Syntax and Structure of Lesser-Studied Languages.
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Assistant Professor,
Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy
James and JoAnn Holden Faculty Award
The James and JoAnn Holden Faculty Award recognizes outstanding faculty who inspire freshman and sophomore students through their willingness to teach, encourage and support students’ transition into higher education. His research is in the field of quantum optics, with particular emphasis on its applications to quantum information science and quantum metrology. This year, Marino was the
recipient of a $500,000 National Science Foundation CAREER (Faculty Early Career Development Program) Award
to study new possibilities for the use of spatial degree of freedom in applications ranging from long-distance quantum communications to quantum imaging.
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Associate Professor,
Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics
John H. and Jane M. Patten Teaching Award
Established by John and Jane Patten, this award is given to a faculty member in the humanities or social sciences who has made an outstanding contribution as a classroom instructor. Lemon teaches the following courses regularly: Introduction to German Culture and Thought, Advanced Composition, State of Mind: The Nineteenth Century, and the Capstone or senior thesis course in the Twentieth Century. His research focuses on German literature and culture in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with a particular emphasis on turn-of-the-century Austria.
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Professor, Psychology
Kinney-Sugg Outstanding Professor Award
Established by Sandy Kinney and Mike Sugg, this award is given to an outstanding faculty member who is a model teacher and an outstanding scholar. Cokely has taught several classes since he was hired in 2015, including Decision Making and Problem Solving and Seminar in Cognitive Processes. He has over 70 peer-reviewed publications, 140 presentations and $2.5 million in continuous research funding. His research is dedicated to understanding key influences on risk assessment and decision-making in a variety of risk-laden areas such as disease screening and treatment risk, weather warnings and risky occupational environments.
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HELP SUPPORT OKLAHOMA STUDENTS PREPARE FOR COLLEGE
The University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences has teamed up with Crooked Oak Public Schools in Oklahoma City for a 45-day crowdfunding campaign. In 2016, OU implemented professor Paul Ketchum’s college preparation program at Crooked Oak High School. The program, designed to increase the number of high-achieving, disadvantaged students eligible to attend college, has changed the culture at Crooked Oak to one that celebrates learning and encourages post-secondary educational opportunities. Concurrently enrolled students in the program work to earn college entrance exam scores that will meet university requirements. This campaign will support the costs of fees, materials and associated expenses for the classes for future students.
All donations to our campaign are 100 percent tax deductible.
You can view our campaign and make a contribution at
https://thousandsstrong.ou.edu/crookedoak2ou
.
If you have donated already, thank you. You can also help by sharing the link to our campaign with your friends and family to help make this project a huge success!
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WINTER CONVOCATION SET FOR DEC. 14
Make your plans now to attend the College of Arts and Sciences 2018 Winter Convocation at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 14, at Lloyd Noble Center. We encourage as many family, friends and community members as possible to join us in this momentous celebration.
Click here
for more information about the event. There will be no guest ticketing, and candidates are asked to arrive in full academic regalia at 5:30 p.m.
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RICHARD AND ENIKA SCHULZE UTILIZE IRA CHARITABLE ROLLOVER TO GIVE TO OU
It has been several years since Enika Schulze had been on campus, but a recent visit led to her giving to OU in a way many are utilizing to help fund higher education.
Enika earned her degree in letters from OU in 1970 before attending Southern Methodist University. About two years ago, she was traveling with her husband, Richard, to see friends in Tulsa when the couple decided to come to Norman.
“I was really impressed with everything that had happened with the campus and by all the classics and letters department was doing,” said Enika. “I was happily surprised that so much was going on at OU, both physically and with the level of scholarship. OU is a special place, and I was glad to see it was doing so well and there is so much for it on the horizon.”
The visit led the Schulze’s to make a gift to OU through a popular method utilizing their IRA charitable rollover. Many donors make IRA gifts in December as part of their year-end strategy to reduce taxes for the year.
Beginning in 2015, the IRA Charitable Rollover provision became a permanent method of giving from an IRA to a qualified charity. You can take advantage of this program at any time and satisfy your required minimum distribution from your IRA without incurring a taxable event. The requirements for such a gift are listed below. To make a donation effective this tax year, you must make your qualified distribution by Dec. 31, 2018.
“It worked well for us because everything we have is taxable,” said Enika. “We would have given regardless, but to give away IRA money in a non-taxable way was one of the advantages people should consider.”
If you are interested in giving the gift of education through your IRA Charitable Rollover,
click here for information
on a wire transfer from your brokerage. A personal check will not satisfy this rollover distribution. If you have any questions, please contact Sharon Alexander, director of stewardship and donor relations, at (405) 325-6201 or
email
.
The requirements for such a gift are:
·If you are 70 ½ or older, you can make gifts directly from your IRA to charities such as the University of Oklahoma Foundation.
·The transfer generates neither taxable income nor a tax deduction, so you still benefit even if you do not itemize your tax deductions.
·The transfer may be made in addition to any other charitable giving you have planned
·You may transfer any amount up to $100,000 directly from your IRA.
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REMINDER FROM OU LIBRARIES
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Instructors planning to use streaming video for spring 2019 classes are urged to contact the Libraries before the spring semester begins to ensure video access is enabled for their classes. Due to budget restrictions, the Libraries have moved from on-demand to mediated video access; contact
Sara Huber
,
acquisitions librarian, to confirm video access for classes.
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FACULTY AND STAFF ACCOMPLISHMENTS
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The college congratulates our director of student development and community,
Paola Lopez, on being named to the Oklahoma Gazette's Forty Under 40
. Lopez spearheaded a massive effort to improve college readiness for the state's Spanish-speaking demographic. She is involved with a variety of civic groups, including OU Latinx Coalition, National Conference on Race and Ethnicity and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Oklahoma.
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Congratulations to
Jessica Cerezo-Román
,
assistant professor of anthropology, who has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Institute for Field Research.
The
Institute for Field Research
is a nonprofit organization established by academic archaeologists. Its mission includes working with leading scholars from universities around the world to provide archaeology field schools to students regardless of their home university. The board of directors evaluates field schools that apply to the IFR to make sure that they have scholarly and pedagogical merit.
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The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography is pleased to announce that
Karl D. “Dave” Hambright has been appointed as the new editor-in-chief of ASLO’s flagship journal, Limnology & Oceanography.
Hambright was selected after an extensive search by the ASLO Publications Committee. ASLO President Mike Pace praised the selection, saying: “Dave brings considerable experience and broad knowledge to the editor-in-chief position. The ASLO Board is excited to have Dave on board. We look forward to continued growth in the impact of L&O under his leadership.” L&O was founded in 1956 with a unifying emphasis on the understanding of aquatic ecosystems and is among the most frequently cited journals in both limnology and oceanography.
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Chuanbin Mao
, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, was elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering College of Fellows. AIMBE is a nonprofit, honorific society of the most accomplished individuals in the fields of medical and biological engineering. Fellows are nominated each year by their peers and represent the top two percent of the medical and biological engineering community. They are considered the life-blood of AIMBE and work toward realizing AIMBE’s vision to provide medical and biological engineering innovation for the benefit of humanity.
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The Société Géologique de France recognized C.B. Hudson/Torchmark Presidential Professor Emeritus
Kenneth Taylor’s
many contributions to understanding the history of geology by awarding him the “Prix Wegmann” for 2018. The prestigious lifetime achievement award has been presented at irregular intervals since 1984. Taylor, who served on the faculty of the Department of History of Science, is the seventh individual and only the second American to receive the award.
Previously, Taylor has won the Geological Society of America’s Mary C. Rabbitt Award in 2007 and the Geological Society of London’s Sue Tyler Friedman Medal in 1998. These three awards, from the British, American and French national geological societies, “are pretty much the triple crown for the history of geology,” said Hunter Heyck, current chair of the History of Science department. Taylor is now one of only two people ever to have been awarded all three.
Taylor became a faculty member at OU in 1967. He served as department chair for 14 years and completed a four-year term (2012-16) as president of the International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences, a commission of both the International Union of Geological Sciences and the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.
Taylor’s research has been directed mainly toward improved understanding of how geology, a comparatively new scientific discipline, began to develop into a recognizably distinct field of science during the second half of the 18th century. His work has addressed in particular the roles played in this process by French scientific figures. He says that this research aims broadly at grasping the beginnings of a geological mindset, which he considers to be “a scientific outlook widely shared among earth scientists, one that inserts the dimension of time into the examination of nature, and tries to identify and explain the natural processes that account for the enormous changes the terrestrial environment has undergone over a very long period, and continues to undergo in the present.”
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Jizhong Zhou
, professor of microbiology, has been named a 2018 Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics. Zhou was listed among an elite group recognized for exceptional research performance as demonstrated by the production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top one percent by citations for field and year in
Web of Science
.
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Ryan Bisel’s
book,
Organizational Moral Learning: A Communication Approach
, received two awards at the National Communication Association Annual Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, in November. The associate professor of organizational communication received the Top Book of 2018 Award from the Ethics Division and the Outstanding Book for 2018 from the Organizational Communication Division. The book presents communication-based recommendations for managers and leaders to encourage authentic moral dialogue at work so that these discussions can be used to update work practices vigilantly as organizations strive for ethical excellence.
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$23,334 - UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
INCLUSION ACROSS THE NATION OF COMMUNITIES OF LEARNERS OF UNDERREPRESENTED DISCOVERERS IN ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE (NSF INCLUDES)
As a member of an Inclusive Graduate Education Network and with NSF INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science) funding, Michael Ashby has been given access to the Survey of Earned Doctorate data to begin exploring the factors that influence the time it takes to complete a doctorate. His research follows a plethora of national studies of graduate education over the past two decades that have yielded similar recommendations. First, most STEM Ph.D. recipients do not pursue careers in academics, indicating a broader range of instructional options is required. Second, it takes too much time to complete a Ph.D., and a concerted effort is needed to reduce the time to degree. It is expected Ashby’s research will help navigate the natural tension that exists in these recommendations, wherein academia is being asked to deliver more training in less time.
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$503,000 - U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS: EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICS INVESTIGATIONS USING COLLIDING BEAM DETECTORS AT FERMILAB AND THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER (LHC) (TASK A) 2013-2016
OU supports an active group working on theoretical and experimental high energy (elementary particle) physics. The five members of the experimental group – Pat Skubic, Phil Gutierrez, Brad Abbott, Mike Strauss and John Stupak – work on the Atlas detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC collides counter-rotating beams of protons together at 13 trillion electron-volts of energy in an effort to understand the fundamental laws of physics. The theory group, consisting of Howard Baer, Chung Kao and Kuver Sinha, perform theoretical calculations for LHC scattering processes and develops and tests new theories for the underlying laws of physics. Some topics under investigation include the experimental consequences of superstring theory, early universe cosmology, dark matter, baryogenesis, supersymmetry and Higgs boson physics.
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$93,463 - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: ELEMENTAL AND ISOTOPIC CHARACTERIZATION OF RAW MATERIALS FOR ANCIENT GLASS FROM SOUTH ASIA - UNDERSTANDING CHANGING TRADE PATTERNS AROUND THE INDIAN OCEAN
The focus is to understand ancient trade and exchange in South Asia and around the Indian Ocean, and their relationships to the development of social complexity in South Asia. Different industries around the Indian Ocean that fueled trade conducted in this region and beyond had to adapt (in terms of location, nature and volume of production) to shifts in the networks connecting the different actors of the trade. Through the study of the ancient glass production in India, Fenn and collaborators will study how such an industry responded to changes in trade patterns around the Indian Ocean starting around the mid-first millennium BCE to the late Medieval Period. At a time when India is witnessing the collapse of its traditional glass industry in favor of a more automated and less labor-intensive alternative, this project will provide new information about the roots of an activity on the brink of extension and will create parallel to understand the consequences of moving industrial landscapes in the modern world.
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$105,285 - U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
PROGRAMS FOR THE TRAINING AND ADVANCEMENT OF THE NEXT GENERATION OF NATIVE RESEARCHERS IN GENETICS, ETHICS AND SOCIETY
The Genomics and Ethics Program for Native Students is a new program designed to provide research and training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students interested in ethical, legal and social questions related to genetics research in Native communities. Students participating in the GEN program can expect to connect with Indigenous researchers, community leaders and Native-serving organizations from across the country shaping the fields of genomics and health in ways that promote indigenous experiences. The four main components of the GEN program are 1) an online course; 2) a summer intensive field-based research course; 3) a fellowship program for students to receive training and research experiences both on campus and within a larger network of supporting institutions; and 4) a student research conference designed to showcase the next generation of student achievements in the ethics of genomics research.
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$240,502 - U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
IRON STATE ON PERIMENOPAUSE: EFFECTS ON BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR
From the onset of menarche, through the child-bearing years, a substantial number of women worldwide are challenged by iron deficiency, the negative effects of which include reductions in measures of attention and memory. However, very little is known about the effects of iron deficiency at menopause. It is possible that a woman who is iron deficient at menopause may be at a higher risk for the negative effects of iron accumulation in the brain in later life. However, it may also be the case that iron deficiency at menopause may protect a woman from these later-life risks. The proposed work will be the first to combine measures of blood iron, brain iron, behavior and brain dynamics to explore these two possibilities and will set the stage for a comprehensive longitudinal examination.
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On Nov. 9, the OU Department of Human Relations and faculty/lecturer
Janna Martin’s
fall 2018 service learning class hosted a pilot program called Middle School University. The program brought in more than 225 seventh-grade students from Alcott Middle School to gain a better understanding of diversity and inclusion, while also obtaining practical skills they can use in peer groups, classroom situations and in their community. Students spent the day at OU hearing compelling personal stories on racism, classism, sexism, ageism and ableism. In addition, the students also participated in small-group discussions and interactive activities and built skills toward improving awareness of diversity and inclusion. Over 40 OU students assisted with the program as they helped with activities and the facilitation of small groups. Martin said that the program was a huge success and the department plans to invite another middle school to OU to participate in Spring of 2019.
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Raymond Orr
, Native American Studies associate professor, will participate in the
Atlantic Fellows Program.
The initiative is administered by the Rhodes Trust at the University of Oxford and the University of Melbourne. The program seeks to bring individuals from business, government and education sectors into collaboration around issues of social, racial and health equity. After the yearlong fellowship, participants become a part of a global group with satellite centers in the United States, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Australia. Orr’s project is to engage in treaty-making debates in Australia through drawing on comparative experiences in the United States and New Zealand. Australia is an outlier in British settler societies, as it never created treaties with Indigenous peoples during colonization. Specifically, he plans to consider what testimonials about treaties and self-determination from Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples from the United States and New Zealand would positively impact treaty discussions in Australia.
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In the spring of 2019,
Andrew Porwancher
, associate professor of classics and letters, will be joining the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin for a semester-in-residence as a National Security Fellow. There, he will work on a new book project,
Theodore Roosevelt & the Jews
, which tells the little-known story of Roosevelt's close ties to the Jewish community. The Clements Center is a leading center for the historical study of military and diplomatic affairs.
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Congratulations to graduate student Stephanie Cross for being awarded the American Indian Science and Engineering Society Research Award at the AISES Conference in Oklahoma City. Cross was awarded third place in the oral presentation category for her research titled "Not My Mascot: Prejudice and Native American Mascots on Stereotype Activation and Attitudes Towards Native Americans." Cross is in the Social Psychology doctoral program in the Department of Psychology.
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The Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work worked alongside the Interfaith Alliance of Oklahoma to sponsor the “In Her Shoes” program at Wildewood Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The program was a one-day seminar for clergy and others in the community who are interested in how to help victims of domestic violence abuse. Leaders from the School of Social Work and Haruv USA prepared the “In Her Shoes” seminar to conduct a simulation based on real-life domestic violence situations. The
seminar was covered by
The Oklahoman.
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The
eighth issue of
Latin American Literature Today
has been published. The journal, which is associated with
World Literature Today,
seeks to reflect new realities of Spanish-language literature through a quarterly online publication, circulating in the United States as well as the literary communities of Latin America and Spain.
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DEADLINES AND FEATURED EVENTS
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Dec. 14
The college will recognize the academic achievement of our students at the upcoming
2018 Winter Convocation.
The convocation will be at 7 p.m. at the Lloyd Noble Center. Please encourage faculty, staff, families, friends and community members to join in this momentous celebration.
Dec. 21
Deadline to submit new undergraduate minors and changes to existing minors (using State Regent forms) to the Dean’s office.
Jan. 15
Deadline to request a NEW Online course or to REDESIGN an existing online course for the upcoming Summer 2019 semester.
Jan. 18
Deadline for academic units to submit to the dean’s office recommendations for reappointment or non-reappointment to a second year for tenure-track and ranked-renewable term faculty.
Jan. 30
CASFAM Staff meeting, 9 a.m., Dale Hall Tower 906
Jan. 31
Chairs and Directors meeting, 9 a.m., Dale Hall Tower 906
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If you have information or announcements for
News & Updates
, please submit to the college
communication office
.
News & Updates
is published every month.
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