Spring 2002
Awards and accolades
Faculty & Staff | Students | Alumni
Faculty
Marcia Eaton (philosophy) is this year's recipient of the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) Dean's Medal. The Dean's Medal honors a member of the faculty who has been an exemplary teacher and scholar and has served the college and the community with high distinction. Prior Dean's Medalists have been Lydia Artymiw (music), Sara Evans (history), Elaine Tyler May (American studies), and Ed Prescott (economics).
Photo by Diana Watters
The 2002-2005 Scholars of the College are: William Phillips (history), Judith Zaimont (music), Riv-Ellen Prell (American studies), Andrew Cohen (linguistics/ESL/Slavic languages and literatures), and Helen Longino (philosophy and women's studies). Scholars of the College, who have achieved particular distinction as scholars/researchers, receive $5,000 a year for three years to support their research and scholarship.
Three CLA faculty received the 2001-2002 Horace T. Morse-University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education: Andrea Berlin (classical and Near Eastern studies (CNES), Lary May (American studies), and August Nimtz, Jr. (political science).
Three CLA faculty also received the 2001-2002 Award for Outstanding Contributions to Postbaccalaureate, Graduate, and Professional Education: Hazel Dicken-Garcia (journalism and mass communication), Mary Jo Maynes (history), and John Sullivan (political science).
The following CLA faculty were recently named McKnight Summer Fellows: Catherine Choy (American studies), Gary Cohen (history), Susan Craddock (women's studies), Alberto Egea (Spanish & Portuguese studies), Glenda Maurice (music), Peter Mercer-Taylor (music), Valerie Miner (English), Hiromi Mizuno (history), Oliver Nicholson (CNES), Wayne Potratz (art), Gwendolyn Pough (women's studies), Kathryn Reyerson (history), Kathy S. Romey (music), William Schaefer (Asian languages and literatures), Philip Sellew (CNES), Joan Smith (theatre arts & dance), Hooi L. Soh (linguistics/ESL/Slavic languages and literatures), Madelon Sprengnether (English), Karen Taussig (anthropology), Eva Von-Dassow (CNES), and Barbara Weissberger (Spanish & Portuguese studies).
Every year the University awards 10 McKnight Land-Grant Professorships to outstanding junior faculty. This year, five CLA faculty members received this honor. The winners include: James Druckman (political science), Robert Krueger (psychology), Valerie Tiberius (philosophy), David Treuer (English), and Haidee Wasson (cultural studies and comparative literature).
Edward Prescott, Regents' Professor of Economics, received the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics from Northwestern University for his pathbreaking work on business cycles and economic fluctuations. The $125,000 prize is awarded every other year to a scholar who has made major contributions to new knowledge or the development of significant new modes of analysis. Prescott is the fifth recipient of the prestigious prize, and the third with a strong Minnesota connection. Previous winners include Daniel McFadden (B.S. physics '57, Ph.D. economics '62), also a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Economics; and Thomas Sargent, a longtime member of the economics faculty (now at Sanford).
Dennis Valdes (Chicano studies) has been awarded the 2002 National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholar Award in recognition of significant contributions to the field of Chicano Studies.
Nora Paul, director of the Institute for New Media Studies in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, has been named one of the Top 10 Wired Women in the world. Columnist Dianne Lynch, in "Wired Women's Top 10," on ABCNews.com describes Paul as "the guru of making connections--between ideas, between projects, between people."
Indira Y. Junghare, Institute of Linguistics and Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures, received the University of Minnesota Outstanding Community Service Award for her contributions and commitment to preserving the heritage and culture of the Indian and broader South Asian community and to bringing about positive long-term changes relating academic and nonacademic worlds. She has also cofounded the School of Indian Languages and Cultures and has established a women's group, "Shakti," whose aim is to help Asian-Indian women address personal issues and adjust to life in America.
The Journal of Advertising, edited by School of Journalism & Mass Communication Professor Ronald J. Faber, has won the prestigious Emerald Golden Page Award for the second consecutive year in the category of Readability and Research Implications.
Tuulikki Sinks (German, Scandinavian & Dutch) and Michael Dennis Browne (English) received the Distinguished Teaching Award from the College of Continuing Education in recognition of their dedication to students and to their areas of study at the University.
Michelle Mason (philosophy) has been named a Faculty Fellow in Ethics (2002-03) by the Harvard University Center for Ethics and the Professions for work on her project "Cultivating Character: Moral Virtue, Moral Trusteeship, and Responsibility for What One Is."
Alex Rothman (psychology) was awarded the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contributions to Psychology from the Science Directorate of the American Psychological Association.
Students
David Simon (political science/Russian/global studies) was awarded the prestigious 2002 Truman Scholarship. Simon--who in his first year took a freshman seminar, "Students and the Constitution," from President Mark Yudof--plans to enter a joint graduate program combining a master's in international affairs and a law degree. He has just returned from a study abroad in Russia. He also served as an intern for the New York Times.
Sociology graduate student Erik Larson was awarded a doctoral dissertation research grant from the National Science Foundation for his research on "Understanding the Proliferation of Stock Markets in a Global Economy."
Taiyon Coleman (English) was selected for a Loft Literary Center Mentor Series Award in Poetry for 2001-2002.
Joshua Benson and Paige Lambrecht (journalism & mass communication) were award winners in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program's Television Broadcast News Feature Competition.
Jason Reed (journalism & mass communication) has been named one of the 25 Most Promising Minority Advertising Students by the American Advertising Federation. Reed is the second SJMC student to receive this prestigious award.
Four CLA Honors seniors have been awarded Katherine E. Sullivan Scholarships, a competitive award that enables outstanding University of Minnesota students to complete a fifth year of undergraduate study abroad. Jessica Fiala (individually designed major) will enroll in the highly selective Wells College Study Program for the Arts in Paris, France. Melissa Kayongo (political science) will study Spanish language, cultural studies, and politics in Toledo, Spain. Jesse LeFebvre (history and Japanese) will complete a Buddhist Studies program in Kyoto, Japan, and an intensive Japanese language program at Nanzan University in Nagoya. Angela Veomett (music) will attend Regents College in London, where she will complete an internship at a nonprofit organization that promotes jazz, world, and contemporary music.
Alumni/ae
Elaine Tuttle Hansen (M.A. '72, English) was appointed seventh president of Bates College in Lewiston, ME. Hansen is the first woman to lead Bates College since its founding in 1855.
Betty Youngblood (M.A. '66, area studies; Ph.D. '70) is the first woman president of Lake Superior State University in Michigan. Youngblood, a Michigan native, is leaving her position as president of Western Oregon University in Monmouth, which she's held since 1995.
Roger Nygard (speech communication '84) was recruited as supervising editor and sometime director of HBO's "The Mind of the Married Man." It has put him, he says, in the "awkward position" of being regarded as "some expert on men and their thought processes. I've gotten calls from ex-girlfriends, asking advice about their current boyfriends' state of mind."