In The Spotlight
Five professors
have been honored during the past year for teaching excellence and lifetime
and career achievement in and out of the classroom.
Nicholas Bankson
Speech-language
pathology professor Nicholas Bankson, who chairs JMU's program in communication
sciences and disorders, received a lifetime achievement award from the
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association at the organization's annual
convention in November.
The award
recognizes contributions of such excellence that they have enhanced
or altered the course of the profession. Nominees must be known for
a lifelong innovative clinical practice, rigorous research, effective
administration and legislative activity, outstanding teaching or other
distinguished contributions.
Bankson was
selected for his 17 years as department head at Boston University and
eight years as department head at JMU. He is co-author of the textbook,
Articulation
of Phonological Disorders,
which is considered a standard among communication sciences and disorders
professionals. Bank-son has chaired national committees that have rewritten
CSD accreditation standards. He was the 1997 Visiting Erskine Fellow
at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and will again serve
in that capacity in 2002.
Gregory
Versen
Social work
professor Gregory Versen, who retired last fall, received the Lifetime
Achievement Award from the Virginia chapter of the National Association
of Social Workers in June. The achievement award recognizes members
of the NASW who have demonstrated outstanding accomplishments over an
entire career and beyond the social work profession.
Versen taught
at JMU from 1977 to 2001. He received the lifetime award for contributions
to Virginia's NASW chapter as a member of its board of directors and
for his work as a member of the strategic planning task force. He is
also the founder of the NASW-Virginia student rally, which celebrated
its 20th anniversary in 2000. Versen contributed to the 1995 White House
Conference on Aging and has helped raise funds for earthquake victims
in Nicaragua and volunteered for Operation Smile. He has hosted National
Public Radio programs on social work topics and served as a disc jockey
for the jazz program Professor Blues.
Virginia
Andreoli Mathie
Psychology
professor Virginia Andreoli Mathie received the American Psychological
Association's 2002 Distinguished Contributions Award. She will accept
the formal citation and $1,000 honorarium at the APA convention in Chicago
in August 2002.
Mathie, who
has served the JMU faculty for 26 years, was honored for her contributions
to the applications of psychology through her work on the Psychology
Partnerships Project: Academic Partnerships to Meet the Teaching and
Learning Needs of the 21st Century. Her leadership on the project, known
as P3, drew together psychology teachers from high schools, community
colleges, four-year schools and graduate schools in an innovative way.
Mathie also
won the American Psychological Association Presidential Citation Award
in 1999 for her work on the partnership project and was the Harry Kirke
Wolfe speaker at last year's APA convention.
Jonathan
Monroe
Biology professor
Jonathan Monroe received the 2001 Excellence in Teaching Award from
the American Society of Plant Biologists last summer. The ASPB, founded
in 1924, has a global membership of 5,000 plant-science researchers
who bestow the top teaching award every three years.
Monroe, who
joined the faculty in 1992, was honored for his commitment to the science
of plant biology at the local, regional and national levels. He has
been a volunteer laboratory instructor at local high schools, run educational
exercises in plant biology for elementary schools and served as an instructor
for the Virginia Native Plants Society.
Monroe's research
in plant biology has helped secure a series of National Science Foundation
grants for the university, and more than 20 students have gained hands-on
experience in his research laboratory. He also serves on the executive
committee of the national Council on Undergraduate Research and chairs
the council's biology division.
Monroe founded
Planted,
a worldwide newsgroup and resource for exchanging information and ideas
for teaching plant biology. Planted
is located on BIOSCI, an international set of electronic communication
forums used by biological scientists worldwide.
John Woody
('77)
Media arts
and design professor John Woody was selected to join Apple Computer's
Distinguished Educator Program for 2001-02. Woody is one of five faculty
members chosen nationally to join the program's creative and design
category, and he is the first James Madison University professor to
receive this honor.
The competitive
program recognizes educators who promote excellence in education through
technology in pre-K through postgraduate programs. Woody was cited for
his expertise in digital media, more specifically his development of
the university video, One
Day, One University: A Video Chronicle of James Madison University.
The 24-hour
marathon video shoot required 100 student and professional videographers
to record a day of campus life at the university. Editors used footage
to produce a 25-minute documentary, sales of which helped raise money
for the School of Media Arts and Design Scholarship fund. Woody will
join other Apple Distinguished Educators in demonstrating and discussing
digital media applications using Apple hardware and software. He has
also been invited to present a guest lecture at the Broadcast Education
Association conference in April.
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