May 1, 2003

Arts and Sciences alumna, students honored

The College of Arts and Sciences honored several graduate students and an alumna at its annual Alumni Achievement Awards banquet on April 28.

Award winners were:

Distinguished Alumni Award: Patricia H. Scudder.

Scudder has been active with the Arts and Sciences Alumni Board, the University of Nebraska Foundation Board of Trustees and the UNL Parents Association Board. As an advocate for the university, she has promoted the efforts of the classics department and the opera program in the fine arts college. In the community, Scudder has served on the City of Lincoln Parks Department Advisory Board and the Project Youth of Lincoln Board of Directors. Her efforts with Project Youth enabled it to expand its activities to provide sporting competitions for more than 2,000 of Lincoln's underprivileged youth. She also volunteers as a reader for NU's Prairie Schooner literary magazine.

Scudder received her bachelor of arts degree from the college in 1964. She taught history and English at Irving Junior High School between 1964 and 1966. In 1969, she began a business breeding, raising and selling horses. She earned a master's degree in 1988 and a doctoral degree in 1996 in medieval English.

Graduate Research Assistant Award: Jameela Al-Jaroodi.

Al-Jaroodi is a computer science and engineering doctoral candidate who conducts research for the secure distributed information project, funded by the National Science Foundation. She works on the core elements of the SDI middleware that provides a platform-independent, secure distributed computing environment. Her work has gained recognition by peers and experts in the field, and she has had papers accepted to international conferences. Some of the results of her work have been used to generate two large research grant proposals to the National Science Foundation.

Graduate Research Assistant Award: Tikhon Bykov.

Bykov is a physics and astronomy graduate student whose research has focused on the development of a molecular theory of nucleation to investigate the rate of formation of droplets in supersaturated vapor. He has published eight journal papers in the field of chemical physics, and his papers have been cited more than 15 times over the past two years. He received the Graduate Teaching Assistant Award last year.

Graduate Research Assistant Award: Andrew Jewell.

Jewell is a graduate research assistant in the English department and in the UNL Libraries Special Collections and Preservation Department. For two years he worked as an editorial assistant on the Walt Whitman Archive, a huge project to edit the writings of Walt Whitman for the Web. He has worked with university archivist Mary Ellen Ducey to establish a prototype version of a virtual guide to Whitman's manuscripts. Their work helped the project win a $245,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. He also has done original work in the English department, including papers about Mark Twain and Willa Cather. His essay about Mark Twain earned him the English department's Robinson Prize for best scholarly paper written by a graduate student. The essay also was published in a special issue of American Periodicals.

Graduate Teaching Assistant Award: Katherine Acosta.

Acosta's teaching reflects her commitment to scholarship in sociology, women's studies and ethnic studies. Her students describe her as engaging, demanding, open and thoughtful. She has demonstrated the ability to employ new technologies in her teaching, for example, using threaded discussions on the web that link students as they reflect on the assigned readings. In addition, she also has provided professional support as the managing editor of the national journal of the American Sociological Association.

Graduate Teaching Assistant Award: Rick Albro.

Albro has demonstrated mastery over every aspect of the chemistry lab and made this knowledge accessible to all of his students. Students say one of his most important qualities is being able to instill confidence so they don't get discouraged, even when an experiment goes awry. He has shown adaptability, being able to teach both science majors and non-majors. He made it possible for students in large freshman chemistry classes to get personal attention. Albro has also inspired high-performing undergraduate students to take on research projects.

Graduate Teaching Assistant Award: Karen Head.

As coordinator of the Writing Assistance Center, English department TA Head has served university students, staff and faculty. In this role she has helped students who were anxious about writing assignments become confident writers. Usage of the center has been at full capacity under her leadership. She has been a very effective teacher in her basic composition classes, and her students routinely praise her for making the class interesting, helping them improve their writing, and caring about them as people. She has also served as coordinator for the Alpha Learning Community, a first-year group in which students take several courses in common and go to cultural events that stimulate the eagerness to learn.

Student Leadership Awards: Vince Cogley and Jaime Henderson.

Prairie Schooner gives awards for 2002 work

Prairie Schooner, the literary magazine of UNL, has announced 15 writing prizes for work published in its 2002 volumes.

The $1,000 Lawrence Foundation Award for the best short story goes to Joan Leegant of Newton, Mass., for "The Seventh Year" published in the summer issue. Leegant's stories have appeared in Nimrod, Kalliope and American Literary Review. This prize is made possible by the Lawrence Foundation of New York City.

Ladette Randolph of Martell is the winner of the $1,000 Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing for "Litany for the Last Days," an essay from the fall issue. Randolph is a 2002 winner of the Pushcart Prize and a 2002 recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. The Faulkner Award is supported by charitable contributions to honor Virginia Faulkner, former editor-in-chief of the NU Press and fiction editor at Prairie Schooner.

The $1,000 Edward Stanley Award for Poetry was awarded to James Tate of Amherst, Mass., for his five poems in the spring issue. Tate won the 1999 National Book Award for his poetry collection, Worshipful Company of Fletchers (Ecco Press), and the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Selected Poems (Wesleyan). Charitable contributions from the family of Edward Stanley, a member of the committee that founded Prairie Schooner in 1926, make this award possible.

The Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, an annual prize of $1,000, was awarded to Brian Evenson of Centennial, Colo., for the story "Virtual," which appeared in the winter issue. Evenson is a senior editor at Conjunctions magazine. The award is made possible through Glenna Luschei's donation of $500,000 to the University of Nebraska Foundation to benefit Prairie Schooner.

The Bernice Slote Award, a $500 prize for the best work by a beginning writer, goes to Donna George Storey of Berkeley, Calif., for her story, "Hot Spring," published in the winter issue. Storey is also the author of Child of Darkness: Yoko and Other Stories by Furui Yoshikichi, a book of translation and critical commentary. The Slote Award is supported by the estate of Bernice Slote, Prairie Schooner editor from 1963-80.

The Prairie Schooner Strousse Award of $500 for the best poem or group of poems goes to Rachel Zucker of New York City for four poems published in the fall issue. Zucker's poems have appeared in Best American Poetry 2001, American Poetry Review, Fence, and Iowa Review. In 2001 she won the Barrow Street Poetry Prize. She is founder and editor of Boomerang!

Susan Atefat Peckham of Milledgeville, Ga., is the winner of the $250 Hugh J. Luke Award for her essay, "What's That You're From?" which appeared in the spring issue. Peckham's collection, "That Kind of Sleep," was a winner of the National Poetry Series in 2000 (Coffee House Press, 2001). The Luke Award was established in memory of Prairie Schooner's editor from 1980-87.

The Jane Geske Award of $250 goes to Eva Martin Sartori of Granby, Mass., for her translation of Irene Nemirovsky's short story, "Fraternite," which appeared in the summer issue. Sartori is editor-in-chief of The Feminist Companion to French Literature and is a research associate at Five College Women's Studies Research Center. The Geske Award is made possible by the contribution of Norman Geske, in memory of Jane Geske.

Prairie Schooner Readers' Choice Awards of $250 each go to Susan Deer Cloud of Binghamton, N.Y., for two poems in the summer issue; M. Evelina Galang of Coral Cables, Fla., for the short story, "Labandera," in the fall issue; Frank X. Gaspar of Long Beach, Calif., for two poems in the summer issue; Constance Merrit of Sweet Briar, Va., for four poems in the winter issue; Anne Caston of Fairbanks, Alaska, for two poems in the summer issue; Marilyn Krysl of Boulder, Colo., for her essay, "Two Motion Fast Happening God," in the spring issue; and Roy Jacobstein of Chapel Hill, N.C., for four poems in the fall issue.

Those interested in Prairie Schooner can purchase back and future issues of the magazine by writing to Prairie Schooner, UNL, 201 Andrews Hall, P.O. Box 880334, Lincoln, NE 68588-0334, calling (800) 715-2387, visiting the <www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain .htm>. Subscriptions are $26 for one year; single copies are $9.

Student places third in research competition

UNL student Nathan Wells took third place in the undergraduate division of the Association for Computing Machinery's Student Research Competition in February in Reno, Nev.

Wells, senior computer science and engineering major from Lodgepole, was recognized for his presentation on "Development of the Self-Calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index." Michael Elder of Furman University in Greenville, S.C., won first-place honors in the competition, with Michael Piatek of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh taking second place.

Last month, Wells was named to USA Today's All-USA Academic Second Team.

The Association for Computing Machinery is a society dedicated to advancing the skills of information technology professionals and students. ACM serves a global membership of 75,000.

Statewide earns Murrow, Cronkite news awards

Statewide, the Nebraska ETV Network's weekly news journal, recently added two more honors to its resume.

The Associated Press/Radio-Television News Directors Association presented the regional Edward R. Murrow Award to a two-part Statewide series, "Minor Violations: Teens and Tobacco Enforcement" in March at the AP/RTNDA regional convention in Minneapolis. This regional award represents first place in the documentary category for the Midwestern Region and qualifies the segment for national competition with winners to be announced in New York City in May.

The reports by executive producer Bill Kelly, which aired in March 2002, were the culmination of a three-month investigation into teenagers, tobacco and the law. Ray Meints, John Beck and Terry Hatch were videographers for the segment, and Statewide host Jana McGuire and interns Brandee Illingworth of UNL and Meghan Rutz of Hastings College comprised the support team for the investigation.

The "Minor Violations: Teens and Tobacco Enforcement" series was funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in cooperation with the Public Broadcasting Service series NOVA and its program "In Search of a Safe Cigarette."

Statewide producer/reporter Mike Tobias has been recognized with the University of Southern California's Annenberg Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Political Journalism for his "Missing Candidate" segment, which drew attention to candidate apathy. This segment, edited by Ralph Hammack, aired in September 2002.

Judges recognized the Nebraska ETV series for its "old-fashioned, rolling up the sleeves" reporting, which explored why people don't want to run for political office, and provided reaction from officials, political scientists and politicians. NETV used its website to display streaming video, transcripts and other resources for viewers.

The USC Annenberg Walter Cronkite Award was presented April 8 during the National Association of Broadcasters and Radio-Television News Directors Association conventions in Las Vegas.

Statewide airs at 7 p.m. Wednesdays, repeating the following Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and the following Sunday at noon on Nebraska ETV. Statewide also repeats on NETV2 at 8 a.m. Thursdays, 1:30 p.m. Fridays and 9:30 p.m. Saturdays.

Reading Rainbow earns 7 Emmy nominations

The national public television children's series Reading Rainbow, co-produced by GPN/Nebraska ETV Network, has been honored by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with seven Daytime Emmy Award nominations.

This year's nominations include Outstanding Children's Series; Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series; Outstanding Directing in a Children's Series; Outstanding Writing in a Children's Series; Outstanding Achievement in Single Camera Photography; Outstanding Achievement in Single Camera Editing; and Outstanding Achievement in Live and Direct to Tape Sound Mixing

Reading Rainbow has received 23 Daytime Emmy Awards including seven for Outstanding Children's Series since 1991. The series, hosted by actor LeVar Burton, is broadcast nationally by the Public Broadcast Service and is the single most-used video in elementary schools nationwide.

Children's series appearing on PBS were honored with more children's nominations than any other broadcast or cable network. Overall, PBS came in third place in total number of nominations in all categories. Of a total of 47 nominations for PBS, 39 of those were for PBS KIDS programs. A complete list of all the nominations can be found at <www.emmyonline.org> in the "Awards" area.

The 30th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards will be announced May 16 at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

The Reading Rainbow concept originated in Nebraska.

As part of Nebraska ETV's children's programming line-up, Reading Rainbow airs weekdays at 3 p.m. It airs on NETV2, the cable television service of Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, at 10:30 a.m. Saturdays and 7:30 p.m. Thursdays.

NPRN news team wins 14 awards

The Nebraska Public Radio Network news team won first- and second-place awards in six of the seven award categories at the Nebraska Associated Press Broadcast News Awards on March 29.

The network received five first-place awards and six second-place awards for segments and series produced in 2002. NPRN reporter/producer Carolyn Johnsen was also honored with the regional Edward R. Murrow award and two additional awards from the Northwest Broadcast News Association.

Award-winning NPRN staff members were Lincoln-based reporters Johnsen and Fred Knapp, western Nebraska reporter Jason Frederick, Omaha-based correspondent Carol Schrader and announcer Hope Stockwell. Individual awards by category:

General News: 1st place, "Palisade Firefighter Dies in Line of Duty," Frederick; 2nd place, "Patriotism Defined," Johnsen.

Feature: 1st place, "Star Party," Frederick; 2nd place, "Falconers Meet," Johnsen.

Agriculture: 1st place, "Spray Drift Guidelines," Frederick; 2nd place, "GMOs and the EU," Johnsen.

Public Affairs: 1st place, "Initiative 300 Documentary," Johnsen; 2nd place, "Nuke Waste Lawsuit," Knapp.

Natural Sound: 1st place, "Desert Dome," Schrader; 2nd place, "Plover and Tern Project," Johnsen.

Newscast: 2nd place for her Dec. 12, 2002, news broadcast, Stockwell.

Johnsen gained additional recognition from the Northwest Broadcast News Association for her work on "Birds or Barges," a winner in Best Audio category, and her documentary, "Initiative-300: 20 Years Later." Johnsen also received a regional Edward R. Murrow award for the "Initiative- 300" documentary, which examined the results of Nebraska's corporate farming restrictions. To receive the regional award, she competed against radio stations in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. The Radio and Television News Directors Association presented Johnsen with a plaque at the NAPBA banquet. She is eligible for a national Murrow award. Those winners will be announced in October at a banquet in New York.

NPRN is a service of Nebraska Educational Telecommunications. NPRN programming is web cast live on NPRN's website, <www.nprn.org>.