August 24, 1999
LAWRENCE -- Five more University of Kansas faculty received surprise classroom visits yesterday 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 yesterday. The honored professors receive $5,000 each.
Yesterday's recipients were:
Their biographies are below.
A total of 16 KU faculty have now received their awards for teaching or advising of students. Winners announced last week were: Arlene Barry, associate professor of teaching and leadership; Diana Carlin, professor of communication studies; Allen Ford, professor of business; Ron Francisco, professor of political science and Russian and East European 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; James R. "Pete" Shortridge, professor of geography; and Norman Slade, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.
The "surprise patrol" will make visits to four KU Medical Center faculty members in Wichita and Kansas City, Kan., today, tomorrow and Aug. 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. Established in 1989 after 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 yesterday's winners:
Sandra L. Albrecht An associate professor of sociology, Albrecht had a leadership role in the Women's Studies Program for several years. Her areas of teaching include the sociology of gender and work, industrial sociology and conflict resolution. Albrecht's forthcoming book will deal with gender and labor militancy in the airline industry. She is the recipient of several teaching awards, and in summarizing her student evaluations over the past five years, one of Albrecht's colleagues notes that, "in most of her classes, most of her students rated her as excellent."
Ann Schofield Schofield, who came to KU in 1980, is a professor of American studies and women's studies. She has a national reputation for her work on women's and labor history, especially her research addressing the intersection of gender and work. A teaching colleague notes that one of Schofield's strengths as an educator is her ability to see the big picture, to recognize that teaching begins not in the classroom but in curricular coherence and well-planned courses. Because of her well-known dedication to students, she carries an especially heavy load of honors and independent study projects, master's theses, and doctoral dissertations.
Renate R. Mai-Dalton Renate Mai-Dalton founded the Multicultural Business Scholar Program in 1992 to provide pre-business and business students from underrepresented groups at the university with an academic and social environment that would improve their retention and graduation rates in the school. In addition to a strong scholarly focus, Mai-Dalton makes certain that students are exposed to theatre, museums, concerts, art and many other university and community activities. Results have been remarkable; the retention rate during the past two years, for example, has been 100 percent.
Brenda K. Myles Brenda K. Myles, recently promoted to the rank of associate professor in the Department of Special Education, is recognized internationally for her work in the area of autism spectrum disorders. Through exernal funding, she established the Autism/Asperger Syndrome Resource Center at KUMC; the center provides information and other services to parents and school districts. Recently, services have been expanded to include the first overnight camp in Kansas for children with autism, a service that provides an occasional respite for parents.
Thomas J. Lewin Tom Lewin teaches a wide range of courses in the history department: oral history and methodology, African social and economic history, and the expansion of 19th and 20th century multinational corporations. As KU's only specialist in oral history, he is frequently sought out as an adviser on special projects, both on campus and throughout the state. He has also been a key participant in KU's Master's of Historical Administration and Museum Studies Program. Lewin's teaching is extremely interdisciplinary, both within the college and with the professional schools.
Contact: Todd Cohen, (785) 864-8858 or e-mail tcohen@ukans.edu