Five Faculty Honored for Excellence in Teaching;
Gilliams Presented National Minority Junior Faculty Award
For excellence in teaching and achievements in
scholarly and creative activity, Albright College
presented five faculty members with awards
during Albright’s 2007 Commencement ceremony.
David A. Martin, D.A., CFA ’67, professor of
economics, was awarded the United Methodist
Division of Higher Education Exemplary Teaching
Award. This award is given for excellence
in teaching; civility and concern for students
and colleagues; commitment to value-centered
education; and service to students, the institution
and the community.
As adviser to the service fraternity Alpha Phi
Omega, Martin encourages and participates in
service projects around Reading, Pa., and last
year organized a trip for volunteers to accompany
him to New Orleans to help with the Hurricane
Katrina clean-up effort.
Jennifer L. Koosed, Ph.D., assistant professor
of religious studies, was awarded the Class of
1949 Annadora Vesper Shirk Award for Outstanding
Faculty Scholarship.
This past year Koosed published her first
book, Permutations of Qohelet, and is now at
work on her second project, which examines the
interconnections in the American West between
Jesus of Nazareth, King David and Jesse James.
The award is named in honor of Albright Professor
Emerita Annadora Vesper Shirk.
Thomas C. Brogan, Ph.D., professor of
political science, was presented with the Lindback
Distinguished Teaching Award. This award,
funded by the Lindback Foundation, is given to a
faculty member who exemplifies excellence and
innovation in teaching.
In a recent senior seminar, Brogan worked
with his students to construct real world community
indicators for the city of Reading, Pa. While
this project was notable for its real world application
of research methods, conceptualization and
theory building, it affected visible change in the
students’ awareness of the need to think in multi
dimensions about political issues.
Christian S. Hamann, Ph.D., associate
professor of chemistry and biochemistry, was the
recipient of the Dr. Henry P. and M. Paige Laughlin
Annual Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching. This award is presented to a faculty member who
honors a strong presence on the Albright campus.
Hamann teaches organic chemistry. Although
it is a difficult course, he refuses to apply it as a
means of weeding out students. Rather, he has
used his encounters with new students in organic
chemistry to help them identify what they can
best accomplish on campus, whether it is in premed
or in the humanities.
Teresa Gilliams, Ph.D., assistant professor
of English, was the first recipient of a new
award presented by the Laughlin Foundation that
acknowledges scholarship in progress — the Dr.
Henry P. and M. Paige Laughlin Annual Distinguished
Faculty Award for Research.
Gilliams, who specializes in African-American
literature, has focused her efforts on analyzing the
boundaries between gender and race and their
intersections in the confines of American society.
She was also recently honored with the
national Christian R. & Mary F. Lindback Foundation’s
Minority Junior Faculty Award for her
project titled “Retrievable Wrongs: Reading and
Preserving African-American Women’s Writing,
1950-2005.” The work will be an anthology/critical
sourcebook of African-American women’s
writing, and will provide critical approaches for
students, faculty and lay people.
The award included a $15,000 grant, the
highest amount the foundation awards, and
is intended to encourage and strengthen the
academic lives and productivity of minority
junior faculty. |
