KU News Release

KU art history department announces 2009 awards

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LAWRENCE — The Kress Foundation Department of Art History at the University of Kansas announced its awards for excellence for the 2008-09 academic year during the 34th annual Amsden Awards Ceremony on May 1.

Rachel Epp Buller, visiting professor at Bethel College in North Newton, was the guest speaker. KU Endowment administers funds for the awards, which were presented by art history faculty members to outstanding students.

Denise Giannino, Lawrence doctoral student; Shu-Yun Ho, Keelung, Taiwan, doctoral student; and Loren Whittaker, Kansas City, Mo., master’s degree student, each received a Marilyn J. Stokstad Art History Graduate Student Award. The award recognizes graduate students in art history who have made major contributions to the educational mission of the department. The awards, which provide cash, are made possible by Stokstad, distinguished professor emerita of art history, who established an endowed fund.

Cathy Brashler, Chicago, Ill., senior, and Bertram Lyons, Cordova, Tenn., master’s degree student, received the Marilyn J. Stokstad Spencer Museum of Art Student Award. Also created by Stokstad, this cash award honors undergraduate or graduate students who have made major contributions to the mission of the Spencer Museum of Art. Museum staff select the recipient of this annual award.

Janet Chen, Lawrence doctoral student, received the Laurence Sickman Scholarship. The scholarship was established in honor of Sickman, past curator of Chinese art and director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, to recognize an outstanding student specializing in Chinese art. The scholarship goes toward tuition.

Rachel Voorhies, Lawrence doctoral student, received the Scholarship for Academic Excellence in Asian Art History, a cash award given annually by an anonymous donor.

Ashley Elston, Ames, Iowa, doctoral student, won the 2009 Timothy Mitchell Memorial Art History Graduate Award. This annual cash award was established in honor of Mitchell, who taught art history at KU from 1979 until his death in 1993. The award recognizes outstanding academic excellence in the graduate program.

Lindsey Bugbee, Colby sophomore, and Abigail Elliott, Winnetka, Ill., junior, received the fall 2008 and spring 2009 Edmund Eglinski Prize Scholarships, respectively. Named for Eglinski, professor emeritus of art history, the award goes to tuition for undergraduates studying art history in Europe.

Leslie Chang, Guyaquil, Ecuador, senior, received the Jeanne Stump Senior Award, which provides cash and a book in the student’s area of interest for the outstanding graduating senior in art history in honor of Stump, professor emerita of art history.

Annette Becker, Lenora sophomore, received the Jon O’Neal Photography Award, which is an undergraduate book award funded by O’Neal, a KU alumnus, that goes to an outstanding student in history of photography courses.

Paige Elliott, Hutchinson senior, received the Harley S. Nelson Family Scholarship, which is made available through the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for noteworthy senior undergraduates in any humanities or social science department.

More than 40 students received books on subjects in which they excelled through a fund established in 1976 by Floyd and Barbara Amsden of Wichita. Faculty members and graduate teaching assistants selected winners based on classroom excellence regardless of class level or major.

Earlier, the department announced Megan Koza Young as the recipient of the Morris Family Scholarship in Art History established by Mark and Bette Morris of Topeka in honor of their daughter, Cynthia, a 1987 KU graduate in art history and German.

KU Endowment is the independent, nonprofit foundation serving as the official fundraising and fund-management organization for KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.

Award recipients are listed by hometown, major, level in school or degree received and, when available, parents’ names and previous schools attended

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