August 20, 1999
LAWRENCE -- Three more University of Kansas faculty received surprise classroom visits today from KU and Commerce Bank officials as part of the William T. Kemper Teaching Excellence Awards.
KU Provost David E. Shulenburger along with Jim Martin, president of the KU Endowment Association and Mark Gonzales, community president of Commerce Bank, Lawrence, presented the awards during the second day of surprise visits to classrooms. The honored professors receive $5,000 each.
Today's recipients are:
A total of 11 KU faculty have now received their awards for teaching or advising of students. Winners announced Thursday were: Arlene Barry, associate professor of teaching and leadership; Diana Carlin, professor of communication studies; David Holmes, professor of psychology; Jan Kozma, professor of Italian; Victor Bailey, professor of history; Stephen A. McAllister, professor of law; Philip Schrodt, professor of political science; and Norman Slade, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.
The surprise patrol will make visits to other Lawrence and Edwards campus faculty on Monday, Aug. 23. Four KU Medical Center faculty members in Wichita and Kansas City, Kan., will be honored Aug. 24, 25 and 31. In all, 20 professors will be honored and $100,000 distributed. The W.T. Kemper Fellowships for Teaching Excellence recognize outstanding teachers and advisers at KU as determined by a seven-member selection committee. The committee's members include students, faculty and KU alumni. This is the third year in the five-year award program.
The William T. Kemper Foundation-Commerce Bank, Trustee, established a $250,000 fund for the program. The KU Endowment Association provided $250,000 in matching funds. The William T. Kemper Foundation-Commerce Bank, Trustee, was established in 1989 after Mr. Kemper's death. The foundation is dedicated to continuing his lifelong interest in improving the human condition and quality of life. The foundation supports Midwest communities and concentrates on initiatives in education, health and human services, civic improvements and the arts.
Biographies of today's winners:
Ron Francisco
A professor of political science and Russian and East European studies, Ron Francisco has seen his academic field of study change drastically in the past few years. The end of the Cold War and breakup of the Communist bloc have provided many fresh opportunities to study political transitions as well as access to more reliable quantitative data that allow academics to test theories that were often largely hypothetical due to official secrecy. Francisco's recent array of courses taught includes surveys in comparative politics, research methods, political revolutions and politics of Western Europe.
Allen Ford
Allen Ford came to the University of Kansas School of Business in 1979, and since that time has won nearly every school, university and professional teaching award extant. In 1996, he received the Ray M. Sommerfeld Outstanding Tax Educator Award, a national honor given to only five individuals since its inception.
A KU colleague indicated that he was not aware of any accounting professor at a major university who carried the type of annual load and number of preparations that Ford does. He is recognized as "the Kansas tax program."
James R. Shortridge
James R. "Pete" Shortridge received a Ph.D. with honors in geography from KU, and promptly joined the faculty. Today he is acknowledged as one of the very top academics in the broad field of American cultural and historical geography. Shortridge writes of his specialty: "I like studying the subtle differences that exist between one part of the United States and another, between one part of Kansas and another, and even between one part of Lawrence and another.
"Students might not initially expect a class on Kansas ... to be as interesting as those on more exotic realms, but if I do my job well, they soon come to delight in learning to see familiar surroundings with new eyes," Shortridge said.