The Quad

Erik Olsen (Economics) has been named The Joseph Cabral Distinguished Scholar and Fellow at the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations. The fellowship provides continuing support to a current Rutgers fellow who has distinguished himself or herself by his or her research contributions. See:

• www.msn.com/?ocid=iehp.

Alex Holsinger (Criminal Justice and Criminology) was recently awarded the American Probation and Parole Association’s (APPA) award for academic contribution to the field of Corrections.  While it is referred to as the APPA University of Cincinnati Award, it is called that because of the long tradition of corrections-related research there. It is not an award by the University. The award is presented to an individual who has made significant contributions to the probation and parole field or criminal justice technology. Recipients typically are individuals from an academic research institution or government agency who are not engaged in providing direct probation and parole services.

L. Randall Wray (Economics) has been awarded a $250,000 grant by The Institute for New Economic Thinking to study “Financing Innovation: An Application of a Keynes-Schumpeter-Minsky Synthesis.”  Wray will collaborate on the project with Mariana Mazzucato, of the University of Sussex in the U.K., to integrate two research paradigms that have strong policy relevance in understanding the degree to which financial markets can be reformed in order to nurture value creation and ‘capital development’, rather than value extraction, and destruction. (This item first appeared in U-Matters.)

 (The following are abbreviated versions of stories and photos previously provided in “Perspectives” and elsewhere in Alumni News. For the full stories see: info.umkc.edu/perspectives/features/honor-roll/)

David Westbrook (B.A. 1971), Defying the Odds Award. Unhindered by the juvenile glaucoma that took his sight at age 17, David Westbrook has proven that vision has nothing to do with one’s ability to see. Westbrook founded Corporate Communications Group, one of the nation’s leading communications and public relations firms. In 2008, Westbrook took his talent and dedication to longtime client Children’s Mercy Hospital. As a volunteer, he has provided his energy and expertise to many community initiatives and organizations, including Alphapointe, American Federation for the Blind, the American Jazz Museum and many more. For Perspectives, he said:

“I think I got my passion from my experience at UMKC as chair of the Kennedy Symposium,” Westbrook says. “I was privileged to be with some truly remarkable thought leaders of the day. Being with those thought leaders and trying to make an impact on issues like the environment, civil rights and the war in Vietnam were experiences that prepared for a life of dealing with change and managing it on my own behalf as a blind man and also on behalf of clients.”
  

Michelle Wimes (B.A. 1988), College of Arts & Sciences. Wimes has used her UMKC Spanish and Communications degrees to spearhead workforce diversity and inclusion across the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Currently she is director of Professional Development and Inclusion at Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart. Wimes previously served as the director of Strategic Diversity Initiatives at Shook, Hardy & Bacon and its nine city offices in the U.S., and abroad. She has garnered many professional and community awards for her work, including The Daily Record’s Leader of the Year Award.

Alex Holsinger (Criminal Justice and Criminology), who received his MS in Criminal Justice from Illinois State University in 1993, was selected to be inducted to the Illinois State University College of Applied Science and Technology Academy of Achievement.  This award recognizes alumni for their professional achievements and service to others.  For more see:

• http://cast.illinoisstate.edu/events/AcademyofAchievement2012.shtml.
    

Virginia Blanton (English Language and Literature) was awarded a University of Missouri Research Board grant for $32,967 to host an international conference at UMKC on “Nuns’ Literacies in Medieval Europe” 5-8 June 2012.  Conference details and registration forms are available at:

• http://www.nuns-literacies.org/.
   

Lyn Elliot (Communication Studies) won prizes at the Black Maria Film and Video Festival and James River Shorts for her 2011 short film, “Another Dress, Another Button.” Her film has also been selected to screen at a dozen other film festivals, including the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Florida Film Festival, the Maryland Film Festival, and the Kansas City Film Fest.  For mor see:

• http://lynelliot.com/pages.php?content=gallery.php&navGallID=1
   

George Gale (Emeritus, Philosophy) reports that his book Dying on the Vine: how phylloxera changed the world of wine has just been named one of the three finalists in the ‘history’ category of the 2012 awards of the International Association of Culinary Professionals.  See:

• http://www.iacp.com/press/more/2012_finalists_for_26th_annual_iacp_awards.

His accompanying comment? “Bet it’s the first time a book in history and philosophy of science has ever been in the hunt for a culinary book award!”
 

Sungyop Kim, (Architecture, Urban Planning + Design) has learned that his co-authored the paper “Bicyclist injury severities in bicycle-motor vehicle accidents” has been listed as one of the most cited articles published in Accident Analysis and Prevention since 2007.  The paper has been cited in 38 peer-reviewed journal papers according to Scopus.  See:

• http://www.journals.elsevier.com/accident-analysis-and-prevention/most-cited-articles/

More than 100 UMKC A&S faculty and staff attended the 2011 A&S Awards Reception at The Residence on Thursday, September 8th. Interim Dean Wayne Vaught presided and introduced the new faculty present, recognized recipients of system and national awards as well as presented this year’s outstanding teaching and outstanding staff awards in the College.

TEACHING AWARDS

The 2011 Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Award for Regular Faculty was awarded to Beth Miller (pictured left), Department of Political Science.

The 2011 Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Award for Non-Regular Faculty was awarded to Julie Urbanik (pictured right), Department of Geosciences.

The 2011 Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Award for Part-Time Faculty was awarded to Mark Raab (pictured left), Department of Geosciences.

The A&S Alumni Association, represented by Pat Madden (pictured right), immediate Past President of the A&S Alumni Board, presented the 2011 Alumni Good Teaching Award to Jennifer Phegley (pictured right), Department of English.

STAFF AWARDS

The staff awards (after a College-wide nomination process and then an evaluation by peers from outside the nominees’ units) recognize those whose work excels in meeting the “Six R’s” of outstanding staff service. These are respectful, responsible, resourceful, receptive, responsive, and reasonable.

The 2011 College of Arts and Sciences Staff Member of the Year is Susan Hankins, who was the Administrative Assistant in the Department of Sociology until July, 2011 when she became Executive Staff Assistant to the Dean.

There were three runners-up from among the 12 nominees as well: Cathy Slack, Accountant in the Dean’s Office, Alicen Lundberg, Administrative Assistant, Department of Art and Art History and Mandy Seley, Administrative Associate, Department of Psychology.

OTHER RECOGNITIONS

Interim Dean Vaught also recalled for those present that two of the three newest UM Curators’ Professors were from the College: Kathy Goggin (Psychology) and Kathleen Kilway (Chemistry). He also noted that the College had two of its faculty awarded Guggenheim Fellowships this year: Clancy Martin (Philosophy) and Christie Hodgen (English).

(Editor’s Note: This item is based on material that appeared previously in UMatters)

Two A&S faculty awarded 2011 Guggenheim Fellowships

UMKC and the College are very proud to have won two of the 180 Guggenheim awards made this year.

Christe Hodgen (English) is an Assistant Professor who specializes in fiction; creative writing; contemporary literature; and the history of the short story. She is the author of A Jeweler’s Eye for Flaw (UMASS, 2003), winner of the AWP Award in Fiction; and Hello, I Must Be Going (W.W. Norton & Co., 2006), which was featured in Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers series. Her short stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Oxford American, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, and New Stories from the South. Her awards include a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Pushcart Prize.

Clancy Martin (Philosophy) works on 19th and 20th Century European philosophy after Kant, the intersections of philosophy and literature, and the ethics of advertising and selling. Clancy has authored, coauthored and edited several books in philosophy, including Love, Lies and Marriage (forthcoming, Farrar Straus & Giroux), Honest Work (Oxford University Press, 2006) with Robert Solomon and Joanne Ciulla, and The Philosophy of Deception (forthcoming, Oxford University Press). In addition to his appointment as Professor at UMKC’s College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Martin is also Professor of Business Ethics at the Bloch School of Management.

»  http://www.gf.org/news-events/press-releases/

 UMKC History Professor awarded prestigious Fellowship in Florence, Italy

Shona Kelly Wray (History) has been awarded a prestigious Fellowship at Villa I Tatti in Florence, Italy for the 2011-2012 academic year. The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti is devoted to advanced study of the Italian Renaissance in all its aspects. Shona is among fifteen Fellows chosen world- wide and one of three from a U.S. college or university. For more see:

»  http://www.itatti.it/appointees/Appointees20112012.pdf

The editorial board of the Pushcart Prizes: Best of the Small Presses has announced that the international literary magazine New Letters has won a rare two awards for work published in 2010. An essay by the famed poet and essayist B. H. Fairchild, called “Logophilia,” will join a short story called “Rockaway,” by the up-and-coming literary talent Lydia Conklin. Both works first appeared in the summer 2010 edition of New Letters and will be reprinted in The Pushcart Prizes: XXXVI (2012).

New Letters received 11 nominations from the Pushcart Prize Board of Contributing editors, for works published in the magazine last year. Works published in New Letters have been frequently nominated in years past and have won Pushcart Prizes several times. This year, New Letters writers have been nominated for poetry, memoir, fiction and essay writing.  However, this is the first year the magazine had two New Letters literary awards-winning writers nominated, Rose Bunch and Siobhán Fallon, and two international writers, Mariko Nagai of Japan and Dorthe Nors of Denmark nominated. Another well-established New Letters writer, Gary Gildner, also received a nomination for the Pushcart Prize in the memoir category.

New Letters Also Gets Glowing Review

Sima Rabinowitz of newpages.com writes: “Here is what I appreciate about New Letters: “a whispery shriek like cracked clarinet reeds.” That’s a characterization, by the first person narrator, of the voice of a character in Abby Frucht’s story “Tamarinds,” and if you know anything about clarinets it will be music to your ears. It’s that precision, and the unique and exacting sensibility of New Letters’ writers, that I anticipate and am perpetually grateful to encounter. The writing is unceasingly original, competent, and always worth my time.”

For more, see:  http://www.newpages.com/literary-magazine-reviews/2011-03-15/#New-Letters-v77-n1-2010-11.

Two A&S students have been awarded the 2011 Summer Scholarships to intern in Missouri delegation Congressional offices. David Jordan, a Communications Studies major, will work in Representative Cleaver’s office and Alex Conaway, a Political Science major will work in Representative Clay’s office. Support for this academic credit-earning opportunity comes from the Truman Center and its donors as well as the Vice-Chancellor for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. Assistant Professor Beth Miller (Political Science) mentors the students. This is the third summer in which two UMKC students have had the chance to work in Congress under the sponsorship of the Truman Center. For more on the Truman Center and its activities, see:  http://cas.umkc.edu/TrumanCenter/

On January 18, 2011, UMKC’s Alice Reckley Vallejos, Associate Professor of Spanish and C. Lynne Clawson-Day, Director of the High School/College Partnerships program received the Greater Kansas City Hispanic Collaborative’s 2011 Award in Higher Education. The Award recognizes their efforts to develop the Latinos of Tomorrow Scholarship Fest and then to expand it from a one-day event to a six-week Scholarship Essay Workshop.

The Scholarship Fest teaches participants how to plan and prepare for post-secondary schooling and finding scholarships that fit the student’s and parent’s profile and circumstances. It introduces students to the planning time-line and process of enrolling in college or any post-secondary training institutes, scholarship search engines, and current information on specific organizations that provide scholarships and college support to students. 

The Scholarship Essay Workshop is intended to help students in an individualized way throughout the college scholarship essay-writing process. Participants in the one-hour university course are assigned a mentor teacher who is available to offer assistance during both essay workshops and via several UMKC resources: email, web and library resources.

UMKC honored 21 winners of its outstanding achievements in teaching, research and service awards on March 8th at it “Celebration of Excellence”.  We congratulate all of the winners and are especially proud that among them there are six from the College of Arts and Sciences. The A&S awardees are:

Heidi Updike, Administrative Assistant, Department of Philosophy, Chancellor’s True Unsung Hero Staff Award		Jerzy Wrobel, Professor, Physics Department, In recognition of receiving the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching
Jennifer Lundgren, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Chancellor’s Early Career Award for Excellence in Teaching		Richard Delaware, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching
Kathy Goggin, Professor, Department of Psychology, N.T. Veatch Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity and also in recognition of receiving the Trustees Faculty Fellowship Award		Jared Bruce, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, in recognition of receiving the Trustees Faculty Scholar Award

In a surprise announcement at the end of the campus ceremony, the Provost reported that Gary Ebersole (History) had received the UM President’s University Citizenship Award for Leadership. For more see:

 http://info.umkc.edu/umatters/2011/03/15/two-umkc-faculty-receive-presidents-awards-um-systems-highest-honor//

In 2009, Dean Karen Vorst initiated a new annual award, the Staff Member of the Year Award, in order to recognize and celebrate an A&S staff member each year who best exemplifies the characteristics of being Respectful, Responsible, Resourceful, Receptive, Responsive, and Reasonable. We are pleased to report that the A&S Staff Member of the Year for 2010 is Patty Wolverton. She received her award at the September 15, 2010 A&S Convocation.

Patty joined UMKC in June of 1989, working as Assistant Supervisor in the Transportation Department until 1994 when she transitioned to a new position in the A&S Dean’s office. Patty’s official title is Human Resources Facilitator, and her main role is to serve as the primary source of support and training for all support staff in the College. Of course, we all know that Patty does much more than that, and that she is an invaluable resource to the College, especially on issues related to hiring, payroll, and personnel management. A fun fact about Patty is that during her 16 years in the dean’s office, she has worked with three different deans and two interim deans!

In her life away from UMKC, Patty has displayed a variety of interests and talents.  A native of Kansas, she was involved in and played fast-pitch softball until she was 40.  She had trained as a hairstylist and once hoped to have her own beauty salon. Now her hobbies are painting, making craft items, camping, dancing and enjoying her family. She has three children and 10 grandchildren.

Three other A&S staff members were also recognized for their efforts in 2010 and given certificates of appreciation and gift cards. They are: Nan Darnell (Social Work),Sherry Neuerburg (English) and Heidi Updike (Philosophy).

Three faculty members were among those recognized at the A&S Convocation in September.  They are:

	Virginia Blanton (English) won the Alumni Good Teaching Award awarded annually to an outstanding regular faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences. ($1,000).
	Toya Like (Criminal Justice and Criminology) won the Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Award awarded annually to one regular faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences for outstanding teaching. ($1,000).
	Andrea Drew-Gounev (Chemistry) won the Dean’s Non-Regular Lecturer Award awarded annually to one non-regular faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences for outstanding teaching. ($1,000).

Two A&S Faculty retired at end of AY 2009-2010

We report the retirements of Jim Falls (History) and    Gary Holcombe (Theatre) and wish them the very best for what they now move on to do.

New Staff

• Mary McDonough — Administrative Assistant
  (Geosciences)
• Gregory Rozell — Academic Advisor
  (Advising)

Years of Service Awards

• 5 years: Stella Szymanski
  (AUPD)

Five A&S faculty were awarded grants by the Missouri Research Board in July, 2010. They are: Keith Buszek (Chemistry); Ekaterina Kadnikova (Chemistry); Jejung Lee (Geosciences); James Murochick (Geosciences) and Nathan Oyler (Chemistry). We congratulate them.