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A year of remarkable achievement

Remarks to the Faculty
by Dean Ann Marie Ellis
College of Liberal Arts Fall Faculty Convocation
Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008

Welcome to the 2008 Academic Year.  It's wonderful to see you!

I hope you saw the yellow banners on both sides of Flowers Hall as you came into the building.  The banners announce the accomplishments of some of our finest teaching and emerita faculty: Congratulations, 2008 Awardees!

One of those awardees whose name is on the banner is Brock Brown, Piper Professor.

Brock has received over 25 teaching awards. Among them are the Texas State University Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Alumni Teaching Award of Honor, and the Distinguished Teaching Achievement Award from the National Council for Geographic Education. Brock is an extraordinary teacher, and he joins an illustrious group of now 17 Texas State University faculty members who have previously been named Piper Professors. Please join me in congratulating Brock.

As a point of pride, Texas State is second only to UT-Austin in the number of Piper Professors we have, and of the 17 Piper Professors from Texas State, 11 are from Liberal Arts.

Another distinguished faculty member honored on our banner is Dr. Lydia Blanchard, Distinguished Professor Emerita of English.

Lydia served Texas State for 24 years. She taught more than 30 graduate and undergraduate courses, published some 20 book chapters and journal articles and achieved national recognition as a D.H. Lawrence scholar. For her scholarly accomplishments, she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Research. She also had a remarkable career as an administrator, chairing the English Department, directing the Center for Multicultural and Gender Studies, and she was the founding Director of the Center for the Study of the Southwest. Congratulations, Lydia!

We also want to acknowledge the winner of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching, Dr. Angela Murphy, Assistant Professor, History.

Angela earned her Ph.D. in History in 2006, and she joined Texas State this time last year.  She is truly a remarkable teacher, helping students discover that “the past is rich with stories that have direct relevance to their own lives as well as to the larger world of the present.” One of her students said that her classes are “the perfect balance of auditory, visual and interactive learning.” Please join me in congratulating Angela.

Angela will receive a check that accompanies the Presidential award.

Please also join me in recognizing two outstanding women in Liberal Arts who are this year’s winners of Mariel Muir Mentoring Award: Dr. Shirley Ogletree, Psychology, who won for outstanding faculty mentor, and Mrs. Karen Bryson, outstanding staff mentor. Shirley and Karen will receive their award at a luncheon hosted by the President in November.
 
Congratulations also go to our newly tenured and promoted professors. Would all of you please stand and stay standing as I call your names: 

Our newest tenured associate professors:

Beth Erhart
Debarun Majumdar
Rebecca Montgomery 
Li-jun Yuan   
 

And our new full professors:

Cyrus Cassells
Maria Czyzewska
Gary Hartman
Roger Jones

A Year of Accomplishments

This was another terrific year of accomplishments for Liberal Arts. We have just finished compiling the College Bibliography, and it reflects truly remarkable achievements.

Some quick highlights:
 
In 2007, 10 Liberal Arts faculty won international, national, and regional awards for teaching and 39 for scholarly and creative activities.

Liberal Arts Faculty published 25 books and 24 book chapters, refereed articles, essays, poems, and short stories.

Our faculty presented 397 scholarly papers, readings, and other presentations at international, national, and regional conferences.        

And, 62 faculty members edited or served on editorial boards of scholarly journals.  

Last year, 179 graduate and undergraduate students’ publications, papers and awards came about through mentoring relationships with Liberal Arts faculty.

And finally, when you look at the list of faculty-authored books by Texas State faculty, 60% of the books are by faculty in the College of Liberal Arts.

Achieving University Goals

In July, I submitted a report to the Provost that outlined how well the College did in achieving important University goals:

1. We did an outstanding job in absorbing growth, while maintaining quality in our programs. Our undergraduate majors grew by 4.3%, and our graduate majors grew by almost 10%.  

I want to thank Stacie McGee, our Graduate Enrollment Coordinator, our Graduate Advisors, program directors, their staff, and our graduate faculty for your great work in growing our graduate program. It’s an important goal for the University and the College.

2. We ensured timely completion of degrees by our doctoral students, and last year, we awarded 7 more doctoral degrees in Geography. The placement rates continue to be amazing. In August, our three graduates had tenure track positions before they graduated.

3. We worked to increase the number of proposals and awards of externally-funded grants and contracts, another important goal of the University. This year we submitted 78 proposals through GAMS, nearly 15% more than the previous year.

Would all of the faculty who wrote and submitted a grant or contract this year, stand so we can acknowledge your hard work? I also appreciate the work of Stephanie Sonnier, who supports anyone in Liberal Arts who needs help with grant administration duties, or who wants information on possible funding sources. 

4. We worked to make the curricula in Liberal Arts more multicultural and international. We now have 343 classes with a multicultural designation. That’s 73% of all multicultural classes at Texas State, and of the 19 Study Abroad programs at Texas State this year, 15 of them were offered by Liberal Arts. We sponsored Fulbright awards and visiting scholars, and we developed agreements with universities and exchange programs in Mexico, Central America, and Cambodia.
 
5. We established a College Alumni Speakers Series, inaugurated an award for Distinguished Alumni, and hosted an event to celebrate the first 5 Distinguished Alumni in Liberal Arts.

6. We increased the size of our Advising Center by 4 new advisors, adding more satellite advisors in departments, and we added a professional advisor to our Liberal Arts Career Center.  

7. We were able to fund more student travel this year: 142 student trips.

8. We hosted more retention initiatives for students, and this year with leadership from Political Science and History, we are leading the Common Experience, on Civic Responsibility and the Legacy of LBJ. Our first event is a gallery show of photographs from Johnson’s White House years borrowed from the LBJ Library. The show will have its opening on Friday in the Mitte Building Art Gallery, and I hope you and your students will see it in the next few weeks.

9. And then there was SACS (Southern Association of Schools and Colleges). We worked hard in preparing for our re-accreditation by measuring and reporting on student learning outcomes in all our programs. This is a very important process. Through it, we identify what knowledge and skills students must acquire to be educated in our majors and core courses, and we identify ways to measure what students have learned. It’s important that all of us participate in this process. At the most fundamental level, please make sure that outcomes are on your syllabi.

10. Probably our most exciting news is we began working with architects on the new $47.7 million, 125,000 sf Academic Building, which will house Political Science, Sociology, our Advising Center, and other University advising and mentoring offices. This will be the first LEED-certified “very green” building on campus (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). We are well into the design phase of the building. It’s actually 2 buildings that span Guadalupe Street with a huge archway—a Spanish-revival building that will be a southern gateway to the campus. With a café, faculty and student lounges, research and conversation areas, beautiful gardens, and all the “green” technologies of a LEED Building, it’s a very exciting project!
 
I’ve just outlined 10 areas of achievement in college goals, and I thank all of you who worked hard on committees and individually to help the college achieve these goals.

And now for our individual awards

Each year, the College of Liberal Arts gives out its highest awards for Excellence in Teaching, Scholarly/Creative Work, and Service in the form of Golden Apples. Each recipient also receives a check (electronically deposited).

As I call your name, please come forward.

Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching

This year’s Golden Apple for Excellence in Teaching at the Associate/Full Professor level goes to Dr. David Butler, Professor, Geography.

David has won the 2007 Presidential Award for Excellence in Scholarly/Creative Activity, the 2006 Presidential Seminar award, and the National Council for Geographic Education’s Distinguished Teaching Award. He is a consummate teacher-scholar, who has directed 7 doctoral dissertations and 10 master’s theses, served on 30 other doctoral and master’s committees, and established an astonishing record of mentoring students to produce 84 publications and conference presentations. David is a remarkably creative and effective teacher and very deserving of this award.
 
The Golden Apple for Excellence in Teaching at the Assistant
Professor/Lecturer level goes to Dr. Octavio Pimentel, Assistant Professor, English.

Octavio’s colleagues “attest to the lively yet respectful environment he creates—an environment that allows everyone to take part in exploring their attitudes toward society, toward learning, toward each other.”  Octavio’s work extends beyond teaching at Texas State as to collaboration with public schools to improve k-12 education. Octavio is “an avid student advocate” whose classes are “engaging and relevant.” One of his students described him as a “phenomenal provider of optimism.”

Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Scholarly/Creative Work

This year’s Golden Apple for Excellence in Scholarly/Creative work, at the senior level, produced a tie between 2 outstanding professors, so we are giving 2 awards this year.

Dr. Kent Reilly, Professor, Anthropology. Kent is a leading expert in the symbol systems of the ancient Olmec and of the Native Americans of the prehistoric Mississippian Period. He has served as consultant or curator for exhibitions at venues such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Princeton’s Art Museum.  His work is held in such high regard that his method of analysis is known as “the San Marcos School” of interpretation, and scholars come from all over the U.S. to attend his annual conference on the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.

Also receiving this award for his outstanding work is Dr. Ben Zhan, Department of Geography. Ben directs the Texas Center for Geographic Information Science, and has made significant contributions to GIScience, publishing over 90 scientific papers and technical reports. His top 5 most-cited articles have been referenced over 400 times by researchers in 32 countries. He has served as major advisor for more than 25 graduate students, and in 2007 one of his students won the Association of American Geographers’ award for outstanding dissertation of the year. Ben also holds an endowed guest professorship in Cartography and Geographic Information Engineering at Wuhan University in China.

The Golden Apple for Excellence in Scholarship at the Assistant Professor/Lecturer level goes to Dr. Sven Fuhrmann, Assistant Professor, Geography. Sven’s “impressive work” (and I take this from a nomination letter from a director at Penn State) has “particular depth in its approach to understanding … geographic information technologies and designing technologies to fit user needs.” Sven served as editor of 4 special journal issues, author of 2 monographs, and author or co-author of over a dozen other publications, as well as 30 papers and invited talks, including 9 at international conferences.  

Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Service

This year, the Golden Apple for Excellence in Service at the Associate Professor/Professor level goes to Dr. Teya Rosenberg, Associate Professor, English.

Teya serves on the University’s Inter-American Studies Board of Directors and on its Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Literature Award. She organized and chairs the Department of English’s Mentoring Committee, and she’s served on the Children’s Literature Association’s Executive Board and its Publication Committee. These are offices that required consulting, screening proposals, and making policy decisions for a major professional society.

This year, the Golden Apple for Excellence in Service at the Assistant Professor/Lecturer level goes to Dr. Deborah Morton, Assistant Professor, English.

Deb is Interim Faculty Coordinator and Faculty Member in Residence for Texas State’s Residential College. She consults as a faculty representative on the University’s TRACS team, and she is a key member of four English Department writing committees, representing Professional Writing, the Master’s in Technical Communication, the Master’s in Rhetoric & Composition, and our First-Year Writing program.  

This year, we also have 4 additional Faculty Awards.

The decisions and funds for these awards (electronically deposited) are made possible through the University’s Award Program. Would you please stand when I call your name:

For Outstanding Teaching, Elizabeth Skerpan-Wheeler, Professor, English. Elizabeth is widely known for her ability to fuse teaching and scholarship. She enforces high standards in her classes, thereby demonstrating “respect for students’ potential as writers, thinkers, researchers, and scholars.” Elizabeth says, “I teach because I know that the skills that develop through literary study…critical thinking, clear writing, argumentation, and accurate reading…will serve students throughout their lives, regardless of the careers they follow.”

For Outstanding Scholarly/Creative Activity, Dr. Rebecca Montgomery, Assistant Professor, History. A professor who well knows Rebecca’s scholarship calls it “path breaking along several axes,” pointing out that the LSU Press publication of her first book, The Politics of Education in the New South, plus two Andrew Mellon Grants to research her second book, are “testimony to the scope and significance” of her work.  Rebecca is also author of an essay that won the prestigious Hall Prize from the Southern Association of Women Historians.

For Outstanding Service, Dr. John Tiefenbacher, Professor, Geography.
John has served on numerous University councils and committees. His vita lists 24 departmental committees, and his lengthy, impressive service to the profession includes President of the Southwest Division of the Association of American Geographers, lead organizer for that organization’s October 2008 meeting here at Texas State, and five-time Technical Auditor for the U.S. Department of State, reviewing 20 projects coordinated by Moscow and the Ukraine that have all involved on-site visits.

Also for Outstanding Service, Dr. Crystal Oberle, Assistant Professor, Psychology. Crystal has served the department in a number of important ways: on faculty search committees, preparing hiring matrices for searches, and writing 3 significant departmental documents, including an extensive Career and Graduate School Guide, a comprehensive document for the Human Subjects Participants Committee, and an extensive policy on administering and using student course evaluations.  She co-sponsors both the Psychology Freshman Interest Group and the Psychology Association, and maintains a substantial record of volunteering in the community.

We also have Dean’s Excellence Award recipients. These faculty members have distinguished themselves in an important way during the past year year.

Would you stand in place while I call your name, and would the audience hold its applause until all the names have been called. 

Dean’s Excellence Award for Teaching

Carole Martin, Modern Languages
Kay Hofer, Political Science
Chad Smith, Sociology
Jerry Melbye, Anthropology
Ben Arnold, Political Science

Dean’s Excellence Award for Scholarly/Creative Work

Britt Bousman, Anthropology
Jon Blair, English
Rob Tally, English
Deborah Harris, Sociology
Christi Conlee, Anthropology
Susan Morrison, English
 

Dean’s Excellence Award for Service

Cathy Jaffe, Modern Languages
Audrey McKinney, Philosophy
Cecilia Castillo, Political Science
Marc Turner, Psychology
Paul Hart, History
Alan Atchison, History

I have two final awards to the faculty members who received the largest number of grants/contracts and highest dollar amount in Liberal Arts. These awards go to

Dr. Bob Larsen, Geography who brought in nearly $213,000 in new grants/contracts, and to Dr. Jon Lohse, Anthropology, who had 10 grants/contracts this year.

Please help me recognize these outstanding achievements.

Faculty Retirements

There are 4 outstanding faculty members in the audience who are retiring. Each has contributed to the College, their department, and the University in many important ways, and I’d like to acknowledge them today:

• Rollo Newsom, who came to the Department of Sociology in 1966
• Diane Parkin-Speer, who came to the Department of English in 1969
• John Hill who came to the Department of English in 1977
• Lydia Blanchard, would you stand again. Lydia came to the Department of English in 1984.

Please join me in thanking these wonderful faculty members for their great contributions to Texas State.

 

Faculty Service Awards

Would you turn your attention to the inside of the program, where we have listed Faculty Service Awards. Each of the awardees will receive a lovely service pin in the departmental meetings, so I just ask now that you stand when I call your name. Audience, please hold your applause. 

• 45 Years of Service: James Pohl, History
• 40 Years of Service: Nancy Grayson, English
• 35 Years of Service: Robert Fischer, Modern Languages; Harvey Ginsburg, Psychology; Theodore Hindson, Political Science; Sharon Ugalde, Modern Languages; George Weinberger, Political Science
• 30 Years of Service: Byron Augustin, Geography; Jeffrey Gordon, Philosophy
• 25 Years of Service: Beverley Braud, English; Elvin Holt, English; Elizabeth Skerpan-Wheeler, English
• 20 Years of Service: Gregory Andrews, History; Frederick Day, Geography; JoAnn Labay, English; Priscilla Leder, English; Susan Macey, Geography; Audrey McKinney, Philosophy; Roque Mendez, Psychology; Hassan Tajalli, Political Science; Susan Tilka, English; Richard Warms, Anthropology
• 15 Years of Service: Susan Beebe, English; Elizabeth Makowski, History; Susan Morrison; English; Kathleen Peirce, English
• 10 Years of Service: Cyrus Cassells, English; Patti Giuffre, Sociology; Lois Hickman, Sociology; Rebecca Raphael, Philosophy; Kenneth Ward, Political Science
  

Introduction of Chairs

I would now like to introduce our chairs, and ask them in turn, to introduce new faculty.

• Anthropology, Jon McGee
• English, Mike Hennessy- No new faculty
• Geography, Phil Suckling
• History, Frank de la Teja
• Modern Languages, Robert Fischer
• Philosophy, Vincent Luizzi- No new faculty
• Political Science, Vicki Brittain
• Psychology, Interim Chair, Shirley Ogletree
• Sociology, Susan Day – No new faculty

Liberal Arts Center Directors

 

• Sandra Mayo - Center for Multicultural and Gender Studies
• Mark Busby - Center for the Study of the Southwest/NEH Regional Center (introduction of Dr. Paul Hart, NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor
• Dennis Dunn - Center for International Studies, and two new Professors of International Studies in the College of Liberal Arts: Dr. John Tiefenbacher, Geography, and Dr. Sharon Ugalde, Modern Languages

I would also like to acknowledge our 2 great associate deans, who are crucial to the success of the college, Nancy Grayson and Dan Lochman.

I want to especially thank Yvette Morales, our Director of Advising, who stepped into Nancy’s shoes, when Nancy’s shoes slipped this summer…as she walked from distant parking. So instead of a vacation in Alaska, Nancy recovered with a couple of fractured and broken bones. But, we are delighted that she’s back on board and well.

I want to thank the staff of the dean’s office for their work on this event: Kathy Scott, Pat Heath, Jamie Donaldson. And thanks to Ann Friou for the great stories this year on the web and in Hillviews and Pam Lemoine for her outreach work. 

There’s one last person I want to acknowledge. Is Will Ruger here? Will is an Assistant Professor in Political Science, and his work on tenure track is being interrupted because, next month, he’s being called to active duty and deployed to Afghanistan. I know you’ll join me in expressing our appreciation to Will for his service to the country and in wishing him a speedy and safe return to Texas State.

In every venue this year, I’ll be discussing the goal of enhancing quality in our programs—increasing the size of our faculty, increasing support for our students, advocating for smaller classes and more resources to support your work. I think we are ready for the coming academic year and poised to do a great job.  I look forward to visiting your departments to listen to your important issues. Until that time, I wish you all the very best in this academic year.

Thank you!