Faculty Awards

Ronald W. Collins Distinguished Faculty Awards

The highest award that any faculty member can earn from Eastern Michigan University is a Distinguished Faculty Award in one of the three primary areas of faculty responsibility:

• teaching
• scholarly/creative activity
• service

The College of Arts and Sciences is always proud of its many outstanding faculty, but we are particularly proud of the plethora of CAS recipients of the EMU Distinguished Faculty Awards, since the inception of such awards in 1977. An education in the EMU College of Arts and Sciences truly ensures interaction with some of the best faculty that EMU has to offer.

In 2012, the College of Arts and Sciences had four winners of this award:

William John Koolage – Teaching Award I. Professor Koolage is assistant professor of philosophy and began his teaching career at EMU in the fall of 2008. He has a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, and holds a number of other degrees, mostly from the University of Manitoba. His teaching interests include philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, formal and traditional epistemology normative and meta-ethics, causation, and some metaphysics.

Weidian Shen - Research II. Professor Shen is a professor of physics and astronomy. He obtained his doctorate in condensed matter physics from Wayne State University, and his master and bachelor of science degrees in physics, with honors, from Fudan University, China. Professor Shen teaches physics courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. During his 20-year tenure at EMU, he has carried out more than 50 research projects, obtaining more than $2,850,000 in grants.

Melanie Schuessler - Creative Activity. Professor Schuessler is an associate professor in communication, media and theatre arts. She joined the faculty at Eastern in 2005. Dr. Schuessler holds a master of fine arts degree in costume design from the University of Wisconsin and received her bachelor of arts degree in history from Rice University. While at Eastern, she has designed costumes and makeup for over 20 EMU theatre productions. Her passion extends to all periods of fashion history, and her research focuses on the clothing of 16th-century England.

Amy Sackseder - Creative Activity. Professor Sackseder is an associate professor of art. She received a master of fine arts degree in painting from Northern Illinois University and a bachelor of arts degree in English from the University of Dayton. She has attended artist residencies in Southern France, Newfoundland-Canada, Philadelphia, Illinois, Budapest-Hungary and Reykjavik-Iceland. She was recently chosen to attend the new Artist Studio Residency program at the University of Nevada's Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery.

Provost's Research Awards for New Faculty

Each year the Provost awards up to $5,000 to first- or second-year faculty members at Eastern Michigan University to assist in their research or creative endeavors. These awards are meant to not only help these faculty members start or continue with their projects, but to make them more competitive for external funding as well. 

2012 College of Arts & Sciences Winners

Amanda Allen (English Language & Literature). "The Sweetness Debate: Neglected Female Junior Novels (1942-1967) and the Gendering of Young Adult Fiction"

Nancy Villa Bryk (Geography & Geology). "Acknowledging Women's Contributions in Sites of Famous Men"

Ramona Caponegro (English Language & Literature). "The Prisoner and the Grande Dame: Leo Frank, Anne Carol Moore, and the Children's Library that Connected Their Stories"

Stephanie Casey (Mathematics). "STEM - Achievement Improvement in Mathematics among Michigan English Language Learners: AIM-ELL"

Todd Grote (Geography & Geology). "Reconstructing Prehistoric Floodplain Environments in the Allegheny-Upper Ohio River Basin, Pennsylvania"

Hyoung-jin Shin (Sociology, Anthropology, & Criminology). "Residential Choice of Immigrant Groups in Newark City, 1880"

Zuzana Tomaš (World Languages). "STEM - Achievement Improvement in Mathematics among Michigan English Language Learners: AIM-ELL"

Provost's Faculty Research Fellowships

2012 College of Arts & Sciences Winners

Summer 2012, Fall 2012, First Round Winter 2013

Leslie Atzmon (Art). "The Graphic Design Reader Anthology"

Elizabeth Currans (Women's & Gender Studies). "Engendering Publics: Women's Demonstrations in the 21st Century U.S."

Paul Leighton (Sociology, Anthropology, & Criminology). "Proposal to Write Chapters for Oxford's Handbook on White Collar Crime and the Routledge Handbook of International Crime and Justice Studies"

Raymond Rosenfeld (Political Science). "Comparative Civic Culture: Ukraine and Latvia"

Jamie Scaglione (Chemistry). "Understanding the Antifungal Mycosubtilin"

Joel Schoenhals (Music & Dance). "Beethoven's 32: Exploring the 'New Testament'"

2nd Round Winter 2012

Ernest Behringer (Physics & Astronomy). "Construction, Calibration, and Use of an Infrared Laser Tweezers for Experiments in Cell Motility."

Kathleen P. Chamberlain (History & Philosophy). "Cooperation and Conflict: The Bosque Redondo Reservation Experiment, 1864-1868."

Carla Harryman (English Language & Literature). "Look Again and Portrait of M: Completion of a Creative Prose Manuscript for Publication Submission."

Flora Hoodin (Psychology). "Feasibility of Assessing Neurocognitive and Psychological Functioning in Patients Undergoing Blood and Marrow Transplantation"

David Pawlowski (Physics & Astronomy). "Towards a Better Understanding of Where the Water Went at Mars."

Joanna Vecchiarelli Scott (Political Science). "A New Perspective on Hannah Arendt: Writing on Politics in Cold War America."

Thomas Schmitt (Psychology). "A Monte Carlo Simulation Evaluating Ordinal Data Estimators in Confirmatory Factor Analysis."

Faculty Sabbatical Awards

2012 College of Arts & Sciences Sabbatical Awards

One Semester

Xiaoxu Han, Mathematics. "Novel Subnetwork Identification Algorithm Development and Network Marker Meta-analysis in Computational Systems Biology"

Steven J. Ramold, History & Philosophy. "After Appomattox: How the Civil War Really Ended"

Martin B. Shichtman, English Language & Literature. "Knight-time in America: Masculinity, Chivalry, and the Golden Age of Fraternal Organizations"

Christine Smith Tanner, Communication, Media & Theatre Arts. "The Phantom of the Opera: Dramaturgy, Directing, and Arts Integration Project"

Two Semester

Leslie Atzmon, Art. "The Visual Power of Hebrew Letterforms in Torah Scrolls and Micrographic Texts"

Frances Elaine Martin, Political Science. "Gender and the Judiciary"

Alumni Association 22nd Annual Teaching Excellence Awards

John Cooper, Communication, Media & Theatre Arts

Margaret Crouch, History and Philosophy

Faculty Resources • Give to the College of Arts & Sciences

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