NINE SUMMER FELLOWSHIPS AWARDED TO JUNIOR FACULTY

Nine faculty members have been awarded $6,000 each in this year's Summer Faculty Fellowship Program competition.

The fellowships, administered by the Old Dominion University Research Foundation, provide the faculty with funds and a small expense account while they conduct research or scholarly activities for an eight-week period during the summer. The funds that support this program come from indirect costs recovered from sponsored program awards to the university for faculty activities.

Michael Dingerson, associate vice president for research and graduate studies, believes that re-investing resources generated by the research enterprise into the career development and academic growth of the faculty is an important component of a systematic plan to nurture that enterprise.

"It is particularly critical to help new, untenured faculty just embarking on their careers to jump-start their activities at the institutional level in order to better prepare them to be competitive in the world of sponsored programs," Dingerson said. "This program gives them that opportunity, as well as bringing their activities and goals to the awareness of our office. Even if a faculty member is not awarded funding, our awareness places us in a better position to help them further develop their strategies for obtaining grants or contracts."

Nearly half of the 21 proposals submitted were funded. The selection process includes peer review, much like faculty would encounter when applying outside of the university. That task is performed with the help of the Scholarly Activity and Research Committee and was made difficult this year by the number of high-quality submissions for funding, Dingerson said.

Faculty who are interested in the program are encouraged to contact the Office of Research and Graduate Studies for further information.

Recipients of this year's fellowships are:
-- Elizabeth Austin-Minor, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, "Insights into Estuarine Organic Matter Cycling Using Flow Cytometry, Elemental Analysis and PY-GC-MS."

-- Trisha Bezmen, assistant professor of economics, "International Trade and Income Inequality: Examining the Case against Globalization."

-- Linda Bol, assistant professor of educational curriculum and instruction, "An Investigation of Teachers: Assessment Practices and Related Course Characteristics."

-- Sangita Gopal, assistant professor of English, "The Emergence of a Third History in the Fiction of Amitav Ghosh."

-- Timothy Havens, assistant professor of communication and theatre arts, "Central European Approaches to Programming Western Television: Cultural Imperialism in Action."

-- Patricia Hironymous, assistant professor of English, "Syllabification Effects in Adult Second Language Acquisition: An Optimality-Theoretic Analysis."

-- Qiu Jin, assistant professor of history, "History, State and Memory: Searching the Past in China?s Present."

-- Jennifer Radkiewicz, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, "Investigation of the Lood Motions of Dihydrofolate Reductase During Catalysis."

--Silvana Watson, assistant professor of early childhood, special education and speech-language pathology, "Content of Teacher Preparation Programs: Prenatal Drug and Alcohol Exposure."