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• Professor David Osgood Receives Rising Star Award for Environmental Work
• $200K Sloan Grant Will Enhance Faculty Flexibility

Professor David Osgood Receives Rising Star Award for Environmental Work

David Osgood, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the Biology Department, received the Rising Star Award from the Berks County Chamber of Commerce on Sept. 30. The award is given to professionals under the age of 45 who have already begun to shape the Berks business community and who are expected to play an even greater role in its future success.

Osgood was lauded for his environmental work in the local community, including collaborating on wetland restorations with Reading, County Conservation District, Schuylkill Action Network and Berks County Conservancy. He has also involved his students in providing water quality data and using GIS to catalog plant species distribution and delineate features of the restorations such as stream-bank fencing and water control structures. The resulting data helps track and assess project success and provides data for funding proposals. Osgood and his students also do stream biomonitoring to gauge the success of the restoration work.

For the Angelica Park Environmental Committee, Osgood is an executive board member and chair of the environmental management subcommittee. He also serves on the Environmental Advisory Committee for the Berks County Conservancy. He was an adviser, along with associate professor of biology Stephen Mech, Ph.D., in the drafting of the Berks County Planning Commission’s land conservation management plan, and he advised on the formation of conservation corridors throughout Berks County.

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$200K Sloan Grant Will Enhance Faculty Flexibility

Provost Andrea Chapdelaine, Ph.D., with the Sloan Award, a $200,000 grant to enhance career flexibility
for faculty.    photo: Dave Markowski

Albright was named by the American Council on Education (ACE) as one of only six colleges nationwide to receive the 2009 Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Faculty Career Flexibility.

The $200,000 award recognizes baccalaureate colleges for their leadership and accomplishments in implementing groundbreaking policies and practices supporting career flexibility for tenured and tenure-track faculty. The awards program is sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and conducted by ACE. Other recipients are Bowdoin College (Maine), Middlebury College (Vt.), Mount Holyoke College (Mass.), Oberlin College (Ohio), and Washington and Lee University (Va.). In addition, Dickinson College and Smith College received $25,000 awards in recognition of innovative practices in career flexibility. Provost Andrea Chapdelaine, Ph.D., accepted the award on Sept. 14 at a dinner in Washington, D.C.

Albright’s ambitious array of efforts will address flexibility from early to late career: a shared-position policy where two faculty members may share the equivalent of a full-time tenure track position; mid-career faculty issues including how work load, governance responsibilities and promotion criteria affect faculty work/life balance; developing programs to promote faculty understanding and use of flexibility policies; and enhancing retirement support.

“This award will help Albright further develop and expand innovative projects that we have already started,” said Chapdelaine. “A flexible and supportive work environment is essential for faculty recruitment and retention. Our goal is to foster a culture that supports our wonderful faculty in their responsibilities of teaching, scholarship and service, all while enabling a rewarding work/life balance.”

“Campuses across the country are grappling with the economic downturn and making difficult decisions about how best to deploy their resources,” said ACE President Molly Corbett Broad. “The dedication these eight campuses have shown to advancing faculty career flexibility options in light of these economic conditions is admirable. These efforts send a clear message to faculty that their institutions are committed to attracting and serving the needs of an increasingly diverse faculty.”

“Since the inception of the awards program, we have seen remarkable changes on campuses with much greater awareness of the need for career flexibility, as well as significant advances in practice,” said Kathleen Christensen, program director for Workplace, Work Force and Working Families at The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Some 60 baccalaureate arts and sciences institutions applied and were evaluated in a two-part process, with only 30 advancing to the second round.

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