|
Old Dominion forwards eight nominations for SCHEV Outstanding Faculty Awards
He believes that for students to compete in a global marketplace after they graduate, they need to understand thoroughly what is happening internationally and develop an appreciation for global cultures. While introducing such topics in his classroom, he has also diligently validated this belief through research and service to the international business community. Even after the international business major was in place and an international component added to the master’s and doctoral programs in business, Ford remained committed to increasing student and corporate awareness of international business and marketing opportunities in Virginia, all the while supporting Old Dominion’s strategic goal to become “Virginia’s International University.” He received the Provost’s Award for Leadership in International Education in April. Ford is a challenging and inspiring teacher, an internationally recognized marketing scholar and an active participant in professional, community and university service activities. “My philosophy of teaching, research and service can be summed up in two words: practical relevance,” he says. “Every aspect of my teaching and scholarship contains a practical aspect to it. Having come into academia from the business world, I have seen a need for enhanced relevance in research. “I am concerned that business education has shied away from its obligation to help the student to be successful in the ‘real world.’ The job for the professor, as I see it, is to focus on managerial implications and relevance in his or her research so both practitioners and academicians can benefit from the work. It also helps that I love the opportunity for interacting with students!" It is thus not surprising that he is the only faculty member in the College of Business and Public Administration who has received all three of its highest awards: the Outstanding Teaching Award, Outstanding Research Award and Outstanding Service Award. An exciting teacher who passes his love and enthusiasm for his subject matter on to his students, Ford is known internationally for his work in international/cross-cultural marketing strategy. He serves on the editorial review boards of six journals and is an officer in two prestigious national marketing associations while also editing the newsletter for the Academy of Marketing Science.
Hatab is an award-winning teacher, a nationally and internationally recognized scholar, and an extensive contributor to university service. He is the only person in the College of Arts and Letters to have received both its teaching and research award. He is currently in his eighth year as chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. A model teacher, Hatab has regularly taught 12 different courses at all levels in the philosophy department, with special emphasis on continental philosophy, ancient philosophy, and social and political philosophy. His scores on student evaluations are regularly above the college mean, usually averaging above five (sometimes well above) on a scale of six. His students consistently praise his enthusiasm, expertise, challenging standards, and ability to explain and communicate difficult philosophical material. It is not uncommon for students to call Hatab the best or one of the best professors they have ever had. In 2002, Hatab received a Most Inspiring Faculty Award, named by graduating Dominion Scholar Yavar Moghimi, a biology major who was moved to become a philosophy minor after taking a general education course with Hatab. Hatab’s research production is no less accomplished. He has published four books and more than 35 articles, book chapters and reviews. John D. Caputo, arguably the premier continental philosopher in the country, calls him “one of the major philosophers writing in the continental tradition in the United States.” Hatab’s most recent book, “Ethics and Finitude: Heideggerian Contributions to Moral Philosophy,” may turn out to be his most influential. In 2001, Hatab was presented the Burgess Award for Research by the College of Arts and Letters. In the area of service, he has also had a remarkable career. He served on the Faculty Senate for eight years, chairing major committees twice. He was also an active participant at all levels in two rounds of general education reform.
Porter believes teaching is more than classroom activity. More than 50 students have participated in his research. He takes great pride in sharing the fun and even difficulty of psychological science (“it’s the most difficult science,” he steadfastly argues). Students in Community Psychology are exposed to his main area of emphasis, learning behavioral techniques for developing and evaluating large-scale programs targeting social problems. In one section he required students to collect safety-belt data at local high schools as part of a program directed by DRIVE SMART Hampton Roads. In 1999, Porter’s teaching was profiled in the College of Sciences’ Catalyst magazine. The article depicted his interactions with students on the first day of classes. Two recent awards are among Porter’s most cherished honors. The University Scholar and College of Sciences Honor Graduate of fall 2001 selected him as her inspirational faculty member, and in 2002 he was named Outstanding Teacher of the Year by the Office of Student Disability Services. Students regularly rate Porter as highly effective. One student wrote, “He is brilliant and provocative. He made me think and encouraged me to question ideas – both mine and others (and his!).” Most of his recent research involves traffic safety. From 1997-99 he studied red light running. The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (sponsor of the research) and local traffic engineering departments, law enforcement agencies and media were partners in his work, as together they designed “Intersection Connection” to reduce red light running. His team witnessed a reduction in red light running over the course of the project, and the research was important for being one of few behavioral projects to document the prevalence and predictors of red light running. Since 2000, Porter has targeted “tailgating” and pedestrian behaviors. His work extends beyond pure application, however. He and his partners have also studied general aggressive driving issues. They have conducted focus groups of experts to identify the most typical aggressive driving behaviors, and have considered a theoretical model of aggressive driving. Porter’s research has been published in leading scientific journals and presented at regional, national and international conferences.
Reynolds’ classes are like family-gatherings; her students have so much fun that they often aren’t aware just how much they are learning. Again and again, they report that her passion is contagious. Most notable among her many scholarly accomplishments are her three novels: “Bitterroot Landing,” “The Rapture of Canaan,” which for several weeks was No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller List, and “A Gracious Plenty.” While Reynolds was hired to teach creative writing, with an emphasis on fiction, she very quickly proved herself in the literature classroom as well. In any given semester, she is working with students in their first semester of college and also with graduate students who have already published books. In all of her courses, Reynolds receives high student evaluations, always well above the department, college and institution mean. Reynolds, the Ruth and Perry Morgan Chair of Southern Literature, encourages her students even as she critiques their writing. Jennifer Woodworth, an M.F.A. candidate in poetry, recalled, “At the end of my first story, Professor Reynolds wrote some constructive criticism, followed by, ‘But – it’s a great start here! You do have a fiction writer in you! We’ll urge it out.’” Reynolds believes that good teaching extends beyond the classroom. So it’s always a compliment when she learns that groups of students are meeting at the local coffee shop after class to continue their discussions. Sometimes she joins them. Former student Maria-Teresa Ripoll said of Reynolds, “Sheri not only instructed me how to make the most of the craft of fiction, she instilled in me the value of creative thinking in all life’s situations.” Reynolds has received both national and international acclaim for her work. Most notable was her 1997 appearance on “Oprah” when “The Rapture of Canaan” was chosen for the show’s monthly book club. In its review of the book, The San Francisco Chronicle called Reynolds “the newest and most exciting voice to emerge in contemporary Southern fiction.” In 2001, Reynolds coordinated and directed the ODU Literary Festival. She visits public schools frequently, speaking to students, reading from her works, consulting on their literary magazines and answering questions about writing. She is a popular speaker and has given many lectures, including the keynote address at the Eudora Welty Symposium in Mississippi in 2001.
Savitzky has taught 20 years at Old Dominion, having been recruited to teach Comparative Anatomy of the Chordates, a course in the evolution of animal structure. He brought new expertise and rigor to a course badly in need of both. It is now frequently described by undergraduates as their most difficult class, but evaluations indicate they strive to meet the heightened expectations. As a herpetologist, Savitzky has lavished much attention on his signature Herpatology course, until recently teaching from primary literature sources in the absence of a recent, comprehensive textbook. To remedy the situation, he joined five colleagues as authors of “Herpetology” (1998), the first entirely new text to appear in that discipline in 26 years. In the course, students use specimens from a research colony of live reptiles to observe and analyze feeding and locomotor behavior. And they visit Savitzky’s field site to observe rattlesnakes, which he has studied for 10 years. Savitzky’s research has shifted recently to include wildlife studies of immediate conservation significance, and from this he developed a new course, Conservation Biology. One student wrote after taking the course, “Dr. Savitzky is who I want to be when I grow up – erudite, an excellent communicator and someone who honestly cares about this field; he is a great professor!” Recent work with a Japanese colleague, Akira Mori, and several graduate students has taken Savitzky in yet another direction. Mori has been studying the only snake known to spray defensive compounds from glands in its skin. Savitzky and his students demonstrated that the glands lack the necessary cellular machinery to manufacture toxins. Instead, the glands have unique concentrations of blood vessels that, they believe, may transport toxic chemicals obtained from their prey and deliver the compounds to the gland. To continue the research Savitzky has been invited to work at the prestigious Kyoto University Museum as a visiting associate professor for July-October 2003, supported by Kyoto University.
In recognition of his teaching, he was named a University Professor in 2001 and received the College of Arts and Letters’ Robert L. Stern Award in 2002. As a faculty adviser, his commitment to students is evident in the considerable time he shares with them. As a teacher-scholar, he integrates his research into the classroom, and as an internship coordinator he placed students in a variety of settings, from congressional offices to the EPA. As department chair, he is praised for his efforts to improve retention and recruitment. Sussman teaches courses on American politics, the American presidency, citizen participation, and environmental politics and policy. He was awarded a university grant to assist him in integrating computer-based data analysis into the introductory American Politics course. He has created Web pages for three of his courses, which include links to government, media and interest group sites. Sussman strives to enhance citizenship and civic engagement by encouraging students to participate in the world around them. He gives extra credit if they attend approved campus events, such as the President’s Lecture Series and Black History Month. They must write a paper summarizing what they learned to receive credit. While his students learn a great deal outside the classroom, they learn plenty inside as well. A student from his Introduction to American Politics class wrote, “I have an overall better understanding of our government and for once in my life I understand what I’m reading in the newspaper.” During his 10 years at ODU, Sussman has published three books and produced more than 50 scholarly articles, book chapters and papers. While his books have focused on either the American presidency or environmental policy, his articles and chapters have also included work on state legislatures and the media, gender differences and politics, attitudes toward legislative term limits, and party platforms. He is currently working on a book that examines environmental policy of presidents from FDR to George W. Bush.
He has conducted and supervised major research efforts in radiative energy transfer in gases, atmospheric radiation and heat balance of planetary atmospheres, high-temperature gas kinetics and plasma physics, computational fluid dynamics, hypersonic flows, combustion processes and flow of chemically reacting and radiating gases, planetary entry heating and thermal protection of entry vehicles. As the first graduate program director for the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Tiwari was instrumental in developing virtually every aspect of the program, including 12 new graduate courses. He has directed and supervised research studies of 33 master’s and 41 doctoral students. Tiwari helped establish the Institute for Computational and Applied Mechanics, which focuses on research and graduate studies in various areas of computational methodology in engineering and sciences. He represents ODU to the national University Space Research Association and is a co-director of the NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program, which annually brings about 40 professors from across the nation to the NASA Langley Research Center. A fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Tiwari is considered a leader in the field of radiation modeling and analysis and computation of chemically reacting and radiating flows. He has organized several national and international professional conferences over the past 25 years. In 1996, he received the Rufus Tonelson Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching, Research and Service, and in 2001 was presented the AIAA Thermophysics Award. He has contributed works to more than 400 technical publications. His research on high-temperature reacting and radiating flows resulted in the design of a thermal protection system for the Galileo Entry Probe and in analysis and computation of flowfields in scramjet engines. He received NASA’s Group Achievement Award for developing the Aerothermal Protection System for the Galileo Probe.
Wolfe possesses a deep knowledge of his discipline; he cares about those he teaches and believes students are part of the process. That is to say, the experiences students bring to his classroom become part of the curriculum. The value former students and colleagues place upon Wolfe’s teaching is enormous; the influence his scholarship has had upon educational reform is impressive; and the impact of his service activities upon his university, community and professional societies is powerful. Since he was a 22-year-old high-school English teacher, Wolfe has been a leader in his profession. In only his second year of teaching, he was elected chair of the English department in a school with 2,000 students and 28 English faculty members. For the past 22 years, he has been a faculty member in the Darden College of Education, where he has taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses for aspiring and practicing teachers, nearly all of whom have evaluated his teaching as superior. Wolfe also has served in many leadership capacities: graduate reading program director; department chair twice; associate dean twice; director of several projects (most notably the Tidewater Writing Project, for which he has procured $700,000 as a grant writer); coordinator of Professional Development Schools in partnership with the Norfolk Public Schools (for which he procured a grant of $150,000); and curriculum developer (most notably through the field-based master’s program with Chesapeake Public Schools). His book “Deciding to Lead,” a blueprint for school reform, inspired this comment in a National Writing Project Quarterly review (winter 1998): “Some educators have been accused of naming what they can’t fix, but Wolfe is fixing as he names. Teachers and others can learn much from this book.” Nearly a decade ago, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill selected Wolfe to become senior program consultant/author of an $80 million venture to develop composition and literature anthologies for the nation’s schools. His work with writing and editorial teams resulted in two textbook series that have been adopted by state departments of education across the country, including Virginia. |
