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UI Faculty and Staff Receive Excellence Awards
April 17, 2003
MOSCOW – The University of Idaho honored 10 faculty members for outstanding achievement in teaching, research, outreach and advising at the annual Faculty Excellence Awards Banquet on Wednesday, April 15, at the University Inn-Best Western.
The winners in each category are as follows:
Excellence Awards in Teaching
Debbie Storrs, assistant professor of sociology, takes an activist approach in all of her work. She expects students to be active learners and encourages them to use their knowledge to be activists within their own communities. Storrs uses service-learning to assist students in making the connection between scholarly learning and the application of knowledge in solving real-world problems. Storrs has been teaching in the UI in the Department of Sociology/Anthropology/Justice Studies since 1997. She received a $5,000 award.
Candida Gillis, professor of English, specializes in preparing future teachers in writing and literature. She regularly develops and teaches courses for the Grace M. Nixon Summer English Institute for practicing junior and senior high school English teachers. She also created the ongoing Writing Partners Project that pairs college students and writers in the community with students in local public schools to exchange and respond to each other’s writing. She came to the UI in 1987. She received a $2,500 award.
Nick Sanyal, assistant professor of resource recreation and tourism, brings a style that focuses on a collaborative-interactive approach to learning that is truly experiential. He creates a classroom environment that encourages students to explore their abilities and leads students to discover their own learning assets. Sanyal consistently works on his pedagogy – always looking for new ways to innovate, new texts to stimulate and new service-learning projects to help students integrate their learning in real time. Sanyal began his UI teaching career in 1992. He received a $2,500 award.
Excellence Awards in Research or Creative Activity
John Oldow, professor of geological sciences, specializes in tectonics, and, by most measures, is the leading geologist in the world for developing understanding of the tectonic history of western Nevada, the Brooks Range and the Appenines of Italy. His pioneering work in western Nevada provided insight into the tectonic origins of the Rocky Mountains. Part of Oldow’s success is due to his resourcefulness and ability to adapt to and use new technology, applying it to geological problems. As a result, his geodetic studies have changed the ways that geologists look at tectonic motions at plate boundaries. Oldow joined UI in 1995. He received a $5,000 award.
Nicholas Gier, professor of philosophy, has established himself as one of the most eminent humanities scholars at the UI. His scholarly work has taken on a global range of intellectual issues, from his early work on the philosophies of America and Europe to his more recent focus on the philosophies of eastern and southern Asia. Since coming to the UI in 1972, Gier has been one of the most active contributors to graduate study in the Philosophy Department. He incorporated his findings and theories into discussions and assignments as to make students recognize that the discipline is alive.” He received a $2,500 award.
Michael Laskowski, professor of biology, directs the WWAMI Medical Education Program at the UI and Washington State University. The program provides medical education for the states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho through the University of Washington School of Medicine. Despite his administrative duties, Laskowski is recognized as an exceptional mentor and instructor. He specializes in developmental neuroscience, an area in which he has made, and continues to make, significant contributions. Roger Madison, Duke University Laboratory of Nerve Regeneration, writes, “Dr. Laskowski’s studies marked a turning point in our understanding of the specificity of motor neuron reinnervation of selected muscles.” Laskowski came to the UI in 1988. He received a $2,500 award.
Excellence Awards in Outreach
Gary Fornshell, associate extension professor, leads a nationally recognized aquaculture extension program, developing programs in effluent management, water quality and trout production and management. As concern over nutrient levels and suspended solids in effluent water threatened to significantly reduce fish production in the state, Fornshell began a research program to correct the problem without lowering production. Thanks to his work, Idaho’s aquaculture industry can produce the same amount of fish that it did five years ago, with significantly lower nutrient levels in the fish farm effluents entering the Snake River. Fornshell, who came to the UI in 1992, conducts major programs on trout production, including disease management, and on water quality. He received a $5,000 award.
Carolyn Keeler, professor of educational leadership, has provided excellent outreach to rural school districts and communities in Idaho for the past 10 years. Realizing early on that many small school districts had no one assigned to develop and maintain a written curriculum, Keeler developed a model for writing standards-based curriculum and assessment. She worked with faculty to provide comprehensive training in standards-based curriculum, curriculum alignment, and aligned assessment and data management. In fall 2002, Keeler was appointed to serve on the Idaho Standards Achievement Test Technical Advisory Committee for the State Department of Education by Marilyn Howard, state superintendent of public instruction. Keeler joined the university in 1990. She received a $2,500 award.
Douglas Pals, professor of agriculture education, is widely recognized for his outreach work with Agriculture in the Classroom (AITC), which helps pre-K through 12th grade students gain greater awareness of the role of agriculture in our economy and society. Writing the first curriculum guide and developing the first AITC workshops for elementary teachers, he has seen his workshops become annual statewide events since 1988 with over 2,700 teachers participating. Pals also has contributed to the UI’s goal of international outreach having completed three successful sabbatical leaves to New Zealand, Kenya and Chile, and participating in a Winrock International - Farmer-to-Farmer Program to Kazakhstan. Pals joined the UI in 1977. He received a $2,500 award.
Excellence Award in Advising
Chris Dixon has served as the academic adviser for the UI’s Environmental Science Program since its inception in 1993. She advises 44 graduate students and 123 undergraduates on the Moscow campus as well as 15 distance education Master’s degree students. She familiarizes each of her “charges” with the rigors and expectations of their academic environment and provides the support that students need to develop study skills, confidence and a sense of both personal and professional direction. Dixon’s holistic approach – from curriculum planning to graduation, integrated with the realities of daily life from financial worries to family problems – has been well received by her students. Dixon received a $2,500 award.
Contacts: Charles Hatch, acting vice provost, (208) 885-6448, crhatch@uidaho.edu; Larry Branen, vice president for Outreach, (208) 885-885-4933, lbranen@uidaho.edu
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RD 4/17/03 ADM
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