Summer 2003
Awards and Accolades
STUDENTS
Yolanda Williams (graduate student, African American and African Studies) recently returned from giving six successful concerts of the opera Porgy and Bess in Switzerland.
Photo by Jayme Halbritter
Zachery Keplinger Coelius (senior, political science and history), recently named to USA Today’s “All-USA Academic Team” as one of the nation’s top 40 students, was one of seven finalists for the 2003 Howard R. Swearer Student Humanitarian Award. A record-breaking 127 applications were submitted by college and university presidents.
Gerri Brightwell, a Ph.D. student in English who is writing a dissertation on servants in Victorian literature, published Cold Country (Duckworth, London, 2002). Described on the flyleaf as “an assured first novel … [about] the themes of friendship, love, and interdependence that power all human relationships,” it is a picaresque narrative of the journey of two young women from Seattle to Fairbanks.
Chris Barnes was selected from 80 volunteers to receive the “Going Above & Beyond” award from the English Learning Center in Minneapolis, where he completed an internship as part of his introductory course on teaching English as a second language.
Photo by Maureen McManus
Toni Thompson (junior, School of Journalism and Mass Communication [SJMC]) was awarded a prestigious Vance Stickell Internship by the American Advertising Federation. Thompson, an honors student in journalism with a Spanish minor, is the first U of M student to win this honor.
Ching Lo, a senior at St. Paul Central High School, is one of five national winners of the $40,000 Knight-Ridder Minority Scholarship. She plans to enroll in CLA, with early admission to SJMC. Lo is a staff writer for The Hmong Times newspaper, is a member of the National Honor Society and the Hmong Women’s Circle, and is active in Fresh Force, a community service group involving St. Paul high school students.
The following CLA students received the 2003 President’s Student Leadership and Service Award: Kayla Brinkman, Kim Fortin, Ryan Grimes, Brian Kao, Sada Konkol, Joshua LaBau, Erica Mischnick, Daniela Morales, Gina Nelson, Jessica Nelson, Kate Nelson, Holly Pettman, Emily Rasmusson, Craig Scanlan, Gabriel Schlake, Sarah Stein, Aaron Street, Milo Sybrant, Jody Ward, and Daniel Weiske. Kayla Brinkman, Kate Nelson, and Jody Ward received the 2003 University of Minnesota Alumni Association Student Leadership Award.
Sarah Stein received the 2003 Donald R. Zander Award for Outstanding Student Leadership
Alumni/ae
Jeffrey Davidow (M.A. ’67, American studies), the State Department’s most senior expert on Latin America, has been elected president of the Institute of the Americas. Before joining the Institute, Davidow was a visiting fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and a visiting scholar at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. He has served as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico (1998–2002) and Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America (1996–98).
Stephanie Wendt (D.M.A. ’92) is one of four recipients of a $25,000 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Performing Musicians for 2003–04. Wendt, who studied piano with Lydia Artymiw, has had parallel careers as a concert pianist and as a broadcaster. She has taught on the keyboard faculties of several universities and has performed on international stages.
Michael Levy (Ph.D. ’82, English) became vice president of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts.
Jon Garon (’85, theatre and psychology) is the new dean of St. Paul’s Hamline University Law School. Garon, a national expert on intellectual property, previously was professor and associate dean at Western State University College of Law, Fullerton, Calif.
Miranda Fischbach (’02, strategic communication and Spanish studies) received the prestigious Dr. Willard Thompson Scholarship and the Minnesota President’s Award from the Public Relations Society of America.
FACULTY/STAFF
Marcia Eaton (philosophy) was awarded the University’s Distinguished Women Scholars Award in Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts for 2003. (See story this issue.)
Paul Sackett (psychology) received the Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the Society for Organizational and Industrial Psychology. The award recognizes scientific achievements in industrial-organizational psychology, the study of human behavior in the workplace.
Sackett is internationally recognized for his research on the development and validation of employee selection systems. His work includes study of the tension between designing selection systems to maximize job performance and those intended to maximize ethnic, racial, and gender diversity; measurement and prediction of counterproductive workplace behavior; assessment of managerial potential; and the role of personality in personnel selection.
Photo by Leo Kim
Lisa Disch (political science), Josephine Lee (English), and Andrew Elfenbein (English) received the 2002–03 Horace T. Morse University of Minnesota Alumni Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education.
Recipients of the award for Outstanding Contributions to Postbaccalaureate, Graduate, and Professional Education were Sara Evans (history) and John Mowitt (cultural studies and comparative literature).
Daphne Berdahl (anthropology), Genevieve Escure (English), and Diane Katsiaficas (art) received McKnight Research Awards, sponsored by the University’s McKnight Arts and Humanities Endowment and given for outstanding research and creative work.
Ray Gonzalez (English) received a 2003 Minnesota Book Award for his recent book of poetry, The Hawk Temple at Tierra Grande, which also was nominated for a 2002 Pulitzer Prize. He received the same award in 2001 for Turtle Pictures. His book The Ghost of John Wayne was named Best Book of Short Fiction by the Western Heritage Foundation. In previous years, Gonzalez received the McKnight Loft Fellowship in Poetry for 2002–03, the University’s McKnight Land Grant Professorship (1999–2001), the President’s Multicultural Research Award (1999–2001), and the PEN-Oakland Josephine Miles Book Award for Excellence in Literature (1997).
Photo by Leo Kim
Thomas Augst, Patricia Crain, and Eric Daigre received the University of Minnesota Community Service Award. The three English deparment colleagues cofounded the Literacy Lab, which integrates civic engagement and service learning into the curriculum of literary studies; creates new opportunities for independent study and literacy research for students; fosters the exchange of skills, knowledge, and experience between students and community learning partners; and develops a new institutional model for collaborative research and teaching in the humanities. Visit the literacy lab website.
Steve Ruggles (history) received the Population Association of America’s prestigious Robert J. Lapham Award, which recognizes contributions to population research, applications of demographic knowledge to improve the human condition, and service to the population profession. Ruggles was honored for his creation of key demographic datasets and his innovative efforts to make the data accessible.
Barbara Reid (emerita, theatre arts and dance) was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center—one of the highest honors theatre educators and professionals can confer on their peers.
Photo by Leo Kim
Brenda Child (American studies) received the University of Minnesota Community Service Award for her dedication to enhancing connections, interactions, and cultural understanding with and among Native American people. The award recognizes Child’s contributions to community service and public engagement on behalf of the University.
For his work as a poet and literary scholar, George T. (“Ted”) Wright (Regents’ Professor emeritus, English) received the prestigious Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award for lifetime achievement. University of Wisconsin Press recently published Hearing the Measures: Shakespearean and Other Inflections—described by the publisher as “an eminent scholar's guide to hearing poets' work”: The book “helps us hear the measures poets use to conjure up strangeness, urgency, distance, surprise, the immediacy of speech, or the sounding of silence.”
Elaine Tyler May (American Studies) was awarded the Fesler-Lampert Chair for 2003–04. May’s work centers on the intersections of gender, sexuality, domestic culture, and politics. She explores how issues normally considered part of private life— such as family, consumerism, and leisure pursuits—reflect, express, and influence American political, cultural, and social values.
Michal Kobialka (theatre arts and dance) was awarded the Fesler-Lampert Professorship for 2003–04. Kobialka’s book on early medieval drama and theatre, This Is My Body: Representational Practices in the Early Middle Ages (U of Michigan Press, 1999) received the 2000 Association for Theatre in Higher Education Annual Research Award for Outstanding Book in Theatre Practice and Pedagogy.
Lou Bellamy (theatre arts and dance) and the Penumbra Theatre (of which Bellamy is founder and artistic director) were presented with the Thomas De Gaetani Award in honor of his outstanding lifetime contribution to the performing arts community.
Photo by Tom Foley
Gary Thomas (cultural studies and comparative literature) and Éden Torres (Chicano studies and women’s studies) are the 2002–03 recipients of CLA’s Arthur “Red” Motley Exemplary Teaching Award.
Norman Dahl (philosophy) was awarded the Outstanding Directors of Graduate Studies award for his work with graduate students; Judith Mitchell (assistant in political science) received the Outstanding Directors of Graduate Studies’ Assistant award.
2003 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Choreographers were awarded to three U of M dance instructors: Danny Buraczeski, Paula Mann, and Susana di Palma. Each fellow will receive a $25,000 fellowship award and will receive in-kind production support for staged work.
Jane Anderson (CLA Student Services) received the John Tate Award of Excellence in Undergraduate Advising for her contributions to undergraduate education.
Susan Wagner (music) was awarded the Civil Service and Bargaining Unit (CS/BU) Award for 2003 for her leadership and initiative in efforts to improve the working environment for CS/BU employees at the University.
Lance Brockman (theatre arts and dance) and Leonard Polakiewicz (linguistics, English as a second language, and Slavic languages and literatures) received the 2003 University of Minnesota President’s Award for Outstanding Service.