Henson And Clarke Receive Excellence In Advising Awards

3-28-96
The Excellence in Advising Awards will be presented in 1996 to Dr. William L. Henson, assistant to the dean, minority affairs, College of Agricultural Sciences, and Dr. Deborah L. Clarke, associate professor of English and women's studies.

This award acknowledges excellence in advising, academic and career guidance and assistance to students in decision-making and goal-setting. They will be honored at the Faculty/Staff Awards ceremony on Sunday, March 31, in the Nittany Lion Inn.

An academic advisor for 27 years, Dr. Henson is an assigned advisor in programs in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology. He also serves as supplemental advisor for minority students and for special population students with other agricultural science majors. He is the assigned or supplemental academic advisor for 50 students.

"I have never met a person who takes such a personal interest in the students he advises," says a senior advisee majoring in horticulture. "Dr. Henson's excellence in advising is exemplified in his logical advice, career guidance and personal characteristics." A colleague adds, "Students are confident that he cares about them. Most of all he is a great listener."

A founder of MANRA, the Penn State chapter of the national society for Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences, Dr. Henson received the Penn State University Award For Outstanding Contributions Improving Equal Opportunity And Cross Cultural Relations in 1989. Two years before, he was presented with the presidential citation from the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.

In 1986, he received a special citation from the Graduate School at Penn State for service in promoting minority graduate study.

"I believe that academic advising must revert to the historical relationship which provided the student a mentor, a personal and career counselor and a friend. The student is the university's customer," Dr. Henson says.

In addition to the Excellence in Advising Award, Dr. Clarke also received the 1996 College of the Liberal Arts Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award. While currently on leave, Dr. Clarke has directed the Honors Programs in the Department of English for two years. At the present, she advises 60 undergraduate majors in the English honors program. Since 1989, she has advised over 300 Penn State graduate and undergraduate students.

Dr. Clarke is a specialist in 20th-century American literature, women writers and feminist literary theory. In 1993, she won Penn State's Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching. While at Eastern Illinois University, she also received the Faculty Award in Excellence in Teaching. She is the author of the book, "Robbing the Mother,"which examines the role of women in William Faulkner's novels.

"What distinguishes her above other advisors cannot be measured by looking at data and facts. Professor Clarke always took the time to ask about not just my studies, but also my life outside of the classroom. At a university as large as Penn State, it is too easy for advising to become a rote exercise that misses the human element, but Professor Clarke surmounted the task and treated her advisees like individuals," an advisee notes.

"The most important thing for an advisor to do is to listen and to remember that a student's academic career should not be determined simply by numbers and categories," Dr. Clarke notes. "Especially in a place as large as Penn State, individual students need individual attention to help them envision education as something that goes beyond the requirements."

**pab**