Betty
Langham, information systems scheduling supervisor in the Office of Administrative
Systems (OAS), is the eighth recipient of the Thomas R. Caldwell Service Award
for Excellence. The award honors Tom Caldwell, a senior systems analyst for
15 years, who died in 1991.
Langham was chosen for the honor this year because of her dedication and outstanding work ethic. She also was cited for her job knowledge, thoroughness, collaborative efforts and attention to detail.
Langham, who began her career at the University in 1978, received a certificate, a wall plaque, gift certificate, a laptop computer and a luncheon in her honor. A permanent plaque listing the previous honorees is on display in the lobby of 31 Shields Building on the University Park campus.
Two youth substance abuse prevention programs, developed by Penn State researchers and implemented in Boys & Girls Clubs, have been identified as effective model programs by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The two programs were among seven recently recognized by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The Penn State researchers were the only ones to have two model programs to their credit.
Tena St. Pierre, associate professor of agricultural and extension education and senior research associate in Penn State's Institute for Policy Research and Evaluation, and Lynne D. Kaltreider, IPRE research associate, developed the two programs known as the Boys & Girls Clubs SMART Leaders program and the FAN Club, short for Family Advocacy Network. Melvin Mark, professor of psychology, and former graduate student Kathryn Aikin worked on the evaluations of the projects.
The seven models recognized are programs with scientifically defensible findings that demonstrate that "prevention works."
The SMART Leaders Booster program was started in 1987 by St. Pierre and Kaltreider at several Boys & Girls Clubs around the country. The two-year peer leader/booster program reinforces skills and knowledge gained in the Stay SMART program, a small group prevention program for 13 to 15 year olds.
Stay SMART is a component of Boys & Girls Clubs of America's national prevention program, SMART Moves. SMART Leaders uses role-playing, group activities and discussion to promote abstinence from alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.
Evaluations conducted by the Penn State researchers over 27 months show that teens who went through the program reported less marijuana, alcohol and cigarette behavior, less overall drug use and greater knowledge of the consequences of their use than a no-program control group.
The FAN Club parent involvement program was initiated at Boys & Girls Clubs in 1990. It is offered to the parents of teens in the Boys & Girls Clubs' drug prevention programs and is aimed at strengthening high-risk families.
Alan
Walker, distinguished professor of anthropology and biology, has been named
a Fellow of the British Royal Society. Founded in 1660, the Royal Society is
an independent organization that serves as the United Kingdom's academy of science
by advising the British government and promoting the natural and applied sciences
both nationally and internationally.
Election to the fellowship of the Royal Society is recognized worldwide as a sign of the highest regard in science. New fellows must be proposed by at least six existing fellows and then assessed by selection committees in each major field of science. Walker, who was honored for his distinguished contributions to the world's knowledge of human origins, is one of 42 new fellows and six new foreign members elected this year.
Walker is one of the world's foremost experts on the evolution of primates and humans. His research involves searching for primate and human fossils in rocks dated from about 30 million to 1 million years ago. He has made many important discoveries during the past three decades with his collaborators, including a famous hominid specimen known as "The Black Skull." In 1995 he and Meave Leakey discovered the skeletal remains of a previously unknown species in the human lineage.
Penn State now has four faculty members in the Royal Society: Walker, Sir Roger Penrose, elected in 1972; Calyampudi R. Rao, elected in 1967; and Robert C. Vaughan, elected in 1990.
In addition, Walker also was recently selected to receive the International Prize from the Fyssen Foundation. The Fyssen Foundation aims to encourage scientific inquiry into such cognitive mechanisms as thought and reasoning, which underlie animal and human behavior. Walker was selected for his distinguished contributions to knowledge in the field of human origins.
Claudine Gina Keenan, English instructor and program administrator for the Lehigh Valley Writing Project at Penn State Lehigh Valley, recently was presented with the 1998-1999 Teaching Excellence Award at the campus. The award is presented annually to recognize a faculty member who exemplifies teaching excellence.
A lecturer in English at the campus since 1994, Keenan earned her master's degree in rhetoric and composition at California State University, Northridge after having completed her bachelor's degree in English at Adelphi University in New York.
Keenan teaches writing and business communication courses at Penn State, using the Internet to connect her classes to the global community. When not teaching in the computer lab, Keenan contributes to technology related committees on campus and offers faculty development workshops to other teachers who want to use technology in their classrooms. She is an active member of several online academic communities and frequently presents her research and classroom experiences at regional and national professional conferences.
Eric McKee, Neil Korostoff and Louis Inserra were the three recipients of the 1999 College of Arts and Architecture Faculty Awards for Outstanding Teaching. The award is designed to recognize outstanding teaching in general education courses, courses within a discipline or major and/or graduate level courses.
In an integrative seminar McKee taught with a musicologist, he demonstrated his skills in innovative and collaborative teaching. Currently, he is working in Poland on a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies.
Korostoff, associate professor of landscape architecture, was the primary author of the proposal to the Howard Heinz Endowments which resulted in a grant to establish the department's interdisciplinary program with the School of Forest Resources in watershed stewardship. Over the past 10 years, he has taught and significantly refined the landscape ecology course. He is currently serving as one of the inaugural faculty fellows in the Center for Watershed Stewardship.
Inserra, professor of architecture, was nominated for the award by a former student. He is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of architecture.
Clifford Lissenden, assistant professor of applied mechanics in the College of Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development grant. The grant program helps scientists and engineers develop their research and teaching simultaneously as their careers get under way.
Lissenden's research focuses on solid mechanics, particularly elastic-viscoplastic response, multiaxial stress effects, damage accumulation and the fatigue and fracture of multiphase and monolithic materials. His NSF research will focus on "Plastic Flow in Reinforced Metals Subjected to Multiaxial Loading" and is funded until May 2003.
The research component for this grant is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the plastic response of reinforced metals subjected to multiaxial loading. The educational component is to develop an undergraduate course that emphasizes the integration of mechanics theory, numerical computations and experiments through the study of real manufactured products and structural elements.