Awards
Penn State Intercom......May 9, 2002

Deans' Excellence awards honor
College of Communications faculty

Four full-time faculty members and one part-time faculty member have been honored by Dean Douglas Anderson of the College of Communications with annual Deans' Excellence Awards.

The awards honor educators who make the ideals of teaching, research and service a reality at the University.

* Krishna Jayakar, assistant professor of communications, received the Deans' Excellence Award for Teaching. He has helped develop the course in telecommunications economics, consistently earned outstanding student evaluations and made an impact in his department and the College of Communications in general.

* Martin Halsuk, assistant professor of communications, earned the Deans' Excellence Award for Research. A newspaper reporter and editor in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco for more than 20 years, Halstuk earned his doctoral degree and joined the faculty for the fall 2001 semester. His research focuses on media law and in the past year he has had two articles published in top-tier refereed journals, had an op-ed column published in the Los Angeles Times and had a piece published in the Columbia Journalism Review. In addition, he has served as an invited panel expert at two major conferences.

* Richard Taylor, the Palmer chair professor of telecommunications studies and co-director of the Institute for Information Policy, received the Deans' Excellence Award for Service. During the academic year, he chaired four committees in the college and served as a team leader for the United Way campaign, which raised a record $11,700 and earned countywide recognition for the greatest increase in dollars raised for units of its size. In addition to those and numerous other activities, he served as a fellow in the eBusiness Research Center for The Smeal College of Business Administration and the School of Information Sciences and Technology. He was a member of the IST E-World Committee as well.

* Maura Shea, lecturer in film/video, received the Deans' Excellence Award for Integrated Scholarship. In the fall and spring semesters combined, she taught nine course sections and a first-year seminar section in the fall. She supervised a major independent study project, participated fully in curriculum discussions and plunged into a pre-production for a feature-length comedy film titled "Hooray for Mr. Touchdown" that will begin production later this spring. She also was active on committees within the College of Communications, coordinated the Samuel Abrams and Carmen Finestra Film Endowment Awards and prepared to co-direct the Institute for High School Filmmakers this summer.

* Chip Minemyer, associate editor of the Centre Daily Times, received the Outstanding Part-Time Faculty Member Award. As part of an effort to build on recommendations by Executive Vice President and Provost Rodney Erickson last year to more fully assimilate part-time faculty members into the fabric of the University, the College of Communications has consistently used part-time faculty members.

World Campus team
honored by national award

The World Campus staff, led by Gary E. Miller, associate vice president for Distance Education and executive director of the World Campus, has been awarded the 2002 Bill Murphy Barrier Buster Award from the American Distance Education Consortium.

The consortium, headquartered at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, is an association of state and land-grant colleges and universities that offer distance education programs and services to the public through the Web and satellite technology.

Miller, on behalf of the World Campus team, received the Barrier Buster Award on April 14 during the American Distance Education Consortium's meeting in Columbus, Ohio. The Barrier Buster Award was created as a tribute to William Murphy, a national leader in the use of distance education technologies in Cooperative Extension who died in 2001.

The World Campus was nominated for the award for its success in eliminating the barriers of time and place for thousands of adult part-time students throughout the United States and the world and for working effectively to bring online distance learning into the mainstream of the University's academic community. The team also was cited for its leadership in raising awareness and understanding within the national higher education community of effective approaches for online delivery in distance education.

Vice President's Awards
honor faculty, staff

Faculty and staff members have been honored with Vice President's Awards for their extraordinary contributions and dedication to the outreach mission of the University.

James H. Ryan, vice president for Outreach and Cooperative Extension, presented the awards at a dinner recently.

Award recipients are:

* Marilyn Corbin, assistant director of Cooperative Extension and state program leader for children, youth and families, Vice President's Award for Outreach Leadership.

* James W. Travis, professor of plant pathology, and his team, Vice President's Award for Innovation -- Pathfinder Award. Team members are Theodore R. Alter, associate vice president for outreach, director of Cooperative Extension and associate dean in the College of Agricultural Sciences; Paul A. Backman, professor of plant pathology, associate dean for research and graduate education and director of the Agricultural Experiment Station; Herbert Cole Jr., professor of plant pathology; Robert M. Crassweller, professor of tree fruit; Frederick E. Gildow Jr., professor of plant pathology; John M. Halbrendt, associate professor of plant pathology; Jayson K. Harper, professor of agricultural economics; Larry Hull, professor of entomology and scientist in charge of the Fruit Research and Extension Center; Lynn Kime, Adams County Cooperative Extension agent; William Kleiner, Adams County Cooperative Extension director; Grzegorz "Greg" Krawczyk, extension tree fruit entomologist, Fruit Research and Extension Center; and Michelle S. Rodgers, regional director of the Capital Region of Cooperative Extension and Outreach.

* Tracey Demko, financial assistant with the Division of Continuing Education's Conferences and Institutes, Vice President's Award for Quality Enhancement.

* Jean Callazzo, staff assistant in the Continuing Education Technology Division at Penn State Great Valley, Vice President's Award for Customer Service.

* John W. Comerford, associate professor of animal science and extension beef specialist, Vice President's Award for Partnership -- Bridge Builder Award.

* Karen Thomas, family and consumer science extension educator with Lackawanna County Cooperative Extension, Vice President's Award for Diversity and Public Service.

* The Distance Education/World Campus Advising Team, Vice President's Award for Special Contributions. Team members are Donna Anderson, staff assistant, and academic advisers Tamsin Crissman, Kimberly Furst, Gerald Goff, Jane Ireland and Karen Lesch.

4 nominees awarded
Goldwater Scholarships

All four of the undergraduate students nominated by Penn State won The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence.

The Scholarship Program honoring Sen. Barry M. Goldwater was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields.

The students and their career goals are:

* David J. Comstock, a junior in materials science/engineering at University Park; career goal: earn a doctorate in materials science and engineering and become an expert and leading researcher in the field of ferroelectric materials.

* Thomas M. Denkenberger, a sophomore in biochemistry/molecular biology at University Park; career goal: earn a doctorate in biochemistry and lead a research group that investigates the molecular aspects of disease and aging, with focus on the roles of telomeres and telomerase.

* Kerri A. Pratt, a sophomore in chemistry at University Park; career goal: earn a doctorate in chemistry and conduct original chemical research either in industry or as a professor, using a multifaceted approach to environmental problems to develop functional products that are both economically feasible and environmentally benign.

* Catherine E. Vrentas, a junior in biology at University Park; career goal: earn a doctorate in cancer biology and use background in molecular genetics to contribute to the understanding of the biology of a cancer cell through research as a university professor.

Goldwater Scholarships were awarded to 309 undergraduate sophomores and juniors from the 50 states and Puerto Rico, selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,155 mathematics, science and engineering students who were nominated by their faculties. For the 2002-2003 academic year, 179 of the scholars are men and 130 are women.

The one- and two-year scholarships will cover the cost of tuition, fees, books and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.

Recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 44 Rhodes Scholarships (six of the 32 awarded in the United States in 2002), 39 Marshall Awards and numerous other distinguished fellowships.

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