Halftime ceremony honors outstanding faculty

Faculty Recognition Day is Nov. 2

By Joni Bentz Seal, onCAMPUS staff

Football will yield to academia when Ohio State's outstanding professors take the field at halftime for the second annual Faculty Recognition Day Nov. 2 in Ohio Stadium. President Karen A. Holbrook and Executive Vice President and Provost Edward J. Ray will join the faculty and the OSU Marching Band for an "Academic Celebration" ceremony.

The event will honor the recipients of the University's six most prestigious awards: the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, Distinguished Scholar Award, Faculty Award for Distinguished University Service, Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Award, University Distinguished Lecturer and the Distinguished University Professor. Also recognized this year is the new University Poet Laureate.

These faculty are revered by students, alumni and peers for being "true educators," "world experts in their field" and "gems of the campus." Nominators also lauded them for their strong commitment to teaching and learning, promoting diversity and exemplifying service to the University community, whether through actions, lectures or poetry.

The Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching honored 10 faculty members with superior performance in teaching. Teaching award recipients are inducted into the Academy of Teaching, which provides leadership on improving teaching at Ohio State.

Six faculty members received the Distinguished Scholar Award, which recognizes extraordinary scholarly accomplishments by senior professors who have compiled a substantial body of research, as well as the work of younger faculty members who have demonstrated great scholarly potential.

The Faculty Award for Distinguished University Service was given to three faculty members who have made extensive contributions to the development and implementation of University policies and programs through nonadministrative roles.

Four individual faculty and five members of an academic unit received Ohio State's Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Award, which recognizes extraordinary efforts of individuals or groups to widen opportunities and programs for minority groups.

Two faculty named late last spring are this year's University Distinguished Lecturers, receiving recognition as outstanding faculty and an opportunity to discuss their work with the community in a University distinguished faculty lecture series.

Two faculty were designated as Distinguished University Professors, considered the highest faculty honor at Ohio State and a title they will hold for life.

And the addition this year of University Poet Laureate acknowledged one faculty member who was proclaimed by the Board of Trustees to have both healed and heralded the University in times of sorrow and joy through poetry.

The honorees will be guests of Holbrook at a pre-game brunch in the Drake Activity and Performance Center. Bruce Bursten, chair of the Department of Chemistry and a Distinguished University Professor, will speak on behalf of the faculty to business and opinion leaders.

"Faculty Recognition Day is a wonderful way to remind the community that, while football is a great game, Ohio State is a great academic institution with world-class faculty engaged in research at the forefront of their disciplines," said Bursten, who also is one of this year's recipients of the Distinguished University Service awards.

"This research allows us to provide a generation of students with the best educational experience possible," he said. "I am honored to be recognized along with my distinguished colleagues."

Faculty Recognition Day was first celebrated in 2001 to acknowledge the accomplishments of faculty in a public way and in a most public place: Ohio Stadium in front of a crowd of more than 100,000.

The following faculty will be honored during Nov. 2 halftime ceremonies at the Ohio State-Minnesota game in Ohio Stadium.

Distinguished University Professors

Linda Saif

Distinguished University Professor, Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine; Professor, Food Animal Health Research Program

Lonnie Thompson

Distinguished University Professor, Department of Geological Sciences; Researcher, Byrd Polar Research Center

Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching

Frank T. Coulson

Professor, Department of Greek and Latin

Susan Robb Jones

Assistant Professor, School of Educational Policy and Leadership

J. Eric Juterbock

Associate Professor, Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology

Gregory W. Kilcup

Associate Professor, Department of Physics

Mary K. Marvel

Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Management

Dev S. Pathak

Director, Center for Health Outcomes, Policy, and Evaluation Studies; Merrell Dow Professorship in Pharmaceutical Administration; Interim Dean, School of Public Health

R. Brian Stone

Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial, Interior, and Visual Communication Design

David L. Tomasko

Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering

Gregory N. Washington

Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu

Assistant Professor, Department of History

Distinguished Scholar Award

Michael A. Caligiuri

John L. Marakas Nationwide Insurance Enterprise Foundation Chair in Cancer Research; Associate Director of Clinical Research, Comprehensive Cancer Center

Richard Davis

Professor, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

Andrew P. Gould

Professor, Department of Astronomy

Tin-Lun (Jason) Ho

Professor, Department of Physics

Deborah Jones Merritt

Director, John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy; John Deaver Drinko-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law

Allison A. Snow

Professor, Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology

Faculty Award for Distinguished University Service

Bruce E. Bursten

Distinguished University Professor; Chair, Department of Chemistry

Brian Joseph

Kenneth E. Naylor Professor, Department of Linguistics

Stephen M. Reed

Professor, Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences

Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Awards

Ruth Colker

Heck-Faust Memorial Chair in Constitutional Law, Moritz College of Law

Leslie M. Fine

Associate Professor of Marketing, Fisher College of Business

Linda S. Houston

Associate Professor in the Arts, Science, and Business Division, Agricultural Technical Institute

Jacqueline J. Royster

Professor, Department of English

Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, College of Humanities

Donna Crossman, Angela Henderson, Cynthia Pelak, Karyl Shirkey, Verta Taylor

Department of Sociology, Undergraduate Student Services

University Distinguished Lecturers

Stephen Cecchetti

Professor, Department of Economics

F. Abiola Irele

Professor of African-American and African Studies, Department of Comparative Studies, Department of French and Italian

Poet Laureate

David Citino

Professor, Department of English

Photos by Jo McCulty Julia Alvarez signs copies of her book Oct. 7.

Buckeye Book Community hosts renowned authors

By Liz Cook, Media Relations

Award-winning author Julia Alvarez, who wrote In the Time of the Butterflies, and Pulitzer prize-winning author Michael Chabon, writer of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, which won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for American Fiction and is listed as a New York Times bestseller, visited Ohio State this month to take part in campus-wide discussions of their respective novels. The discussions and book signings were held in Independence Hall.

"The Buckeye Book Community provides an opportunity for everyone involved with our University to share both a common and cultural interest," said Mabel Freeman, vice president of undergraduate admissions and First Year Experience. "We feel truly honored to have these highly-acclaimed authors participate in our program."

Michael Chabon engages students in discussion during his visit Oct. 14.

The authors were selected last spring based on their varying themes and their novels' potential to stimulate dialogue. The books were made available for purchase online and in area bookstores. Nearly 4,000 books have been sold.

In addition to the authors' appearances, a number of group discussions led by Ohio State faculty and staff were conducted.

Recently honored by the Hispanic Heritage Awards Foundation, Alvarez's novel is inspired by a true story. It profiles the story of the three Mirabal sisters and their involvement in the underground resistance movement against the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.

Chabon's novels both explore the personal coming of age of youths, as well as the importance of relationships and hope. His future projects include the rewrite of The Amazing Spider-Man, the sequel to the summer box office smash.

In its second year, The Buckeye Book Community seeks to involve faculty, academic advisers, staff members and students in a collaborative reading initiative designed to spark campus discussion on critical issues of the day.