Anderson appointed Interim Dean at UNL College of Business Administration

John E. Anderson, associate dean of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Business Administration, takes over the helm of the college in an interim dean capacity effective May 8. Barbara Couture, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at UNL, made the appointment.

Anderson is Baird family professor of economics, in addition to being associate dean. He joined the college in 1991, and his expertise is international finance, public finance, property and sales tax, public policy analysis and taxation. He earned his Ph.D. in economics at Claremont Graduate School and his bachelor's degree in mathematics and economics from Western Michigan University. In 2005, he was appointed a senior economist with the President's Council of Economic Advisers in Washington, D.C., and served as an adviser with the council, with particular duties related to public finance policy issues including tax reform, social security, and other federal revenue and spending programs.

Cynthia Milligan's last day as dean of the college was May 7, Couture said, and in a memo to faculty and staff Couture thanked her for her past leadership and wished her the best for the future. Milligan announced in November her plans to retire at the end of the spring semester. She had been dean of the college since 1998.

Having served as associate dean, John has demonstrated his commitment to the success of the college, and he will bring to the position a deep and broad knowledge of its programs, challenges, and opportunities. I am confident that the college will continue to move forward and thrive under his interim leadership, Couture said.

Faculty recommended for Promotion and Tenure

Congratulations to the following faculty who earned tenure and or promotion this year. They were honored at a reception May 5 at the June & Paul Schorr III Center for Computer Science & Engineering.

Tenure Only:
Associate Professor Adonna Fleming, Libraries

Promotion to Associate Professor and Tenured:
Marco Abel, English
Richard Alloway, Journalism
Peter Angeletti, Biological Sciences
Gregory Bashford, Biological Systems Engineering
Christian Binek, Physics & Astronomy
Kenneth Bloom, Physics & Astronomy
Kathleen Butler, Music
Song Ci, Computer & Electronics Engineering
Aaron Dominguez, Physics & Astronomy
Donna Dudney, Finance
Anne Duncan, Classics & Religious Studies
Mikil Foss, Mathematics
Thomas Gannon, English/Ethnic Studies
Paul Haar, Music
Edmund Hamann, Teaching, Learning, & Teacher Education
Reina Hayaki, Philosophy
Erick Jones, Industrial & Management Systems Eng.
Patrick Jones, History/Ethnic Studies
Jody Kellas, Communication Studies
Jaekwon Lee, Biochemistry
Richard Moberly, Law
Stefanie Pearlman, Law
Robert Powers, Chemistry
Stephen Ramsay, English
Richard A. J. Drew Tyre, School of Natural Resources
Cornelis Uiterwaal, Physics

Promotion to Full Professor
Zoya Avromova, Biological Sciences
Donald Becker, Biochemistry
John Bender, Journalism & Mass Communication
Charles Bernholz, Libraries
Thomas Clemente, Agronomy and Horticulture
Richard DeFusco, Finance
Bruce Dvorak, Biological Systems Engineering/Civil Engineering
Kathleen Farrell, Finance
Loren Gielser, Plant Pathology
John Geppert, Finance
Qi S. Steve Hu, School of Natural Resources
Margaret Jacobs, History
Ann Mari May, Economics
Guillermo Orti, Biological Sciences
Jody Redepenning, Chemistry
Clinton Rowe, Geosciences
Ashok Samal, Computer Science & Engineering
Paul Shoemaker, Accountancy
Tyler White, Music
Shunpu Zhang, Statistics

Promotion to Full Professor of Practice
Mary Anne Holmes, Geosciences

Promotion to Associate Professor of Practice
M. Colleen Jones, Management
Suzanne Kemp, Special Education and Communication Disorders
Timothy Kettler, Agronomy and Horticulture
William Lopez, Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education
Kathryn Phillips, Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education
Michelle Rupiper, Child, Youth and Family Studies

Promoted to Forester
Steve Karloff, Nebraska Forest Service

Promoted to Associate Forester
Eric Berg, Nebraska Forest Service

Promoted to Research Professor
You Zhou, Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences

Promoted to Adjunct Professor
Craig Allen, School of Natural Resources - Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit,

Promoted to Extension Educator
Cindy Brison, Southeast Research and Extension Center

Promoted to Associate Extension Educator
Aaron Berger, Panhandle Research and Extension Center
Tim Lemmons, Southeast Research and Extension Center
Jennifer Rees, Southeast Research and Extension Center
D'Ette Scholtz, Southeast Research and Extension Center

Best Practices Initiative for faculty diversity to launch in Fall 2009

The initiative to adopt best practices to recruit and retain a diverse faculty received approval from the academic deans in mid April, following review by the Senior Administrative Team, the Academic Planning Committee, and the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate. The initiative will formally launch in Fall 2009 with the appointment, by the Chancellor, of a Faculty Advisory Committee, and a request to all academic deans to develop action plans as part of their ongoing strategic planning processes. Additional details about how our colleges will implement this new program will be available next fall.

The following document explains the history of the initiative and its major features:

Initiative to Adopt Best Practices to Recruit and Retain a Diverse Faculty.

I. Why must we employ specific practices to achieve and maintain faculty diversity?

The University of Nebraska has long expressed a belief in the value of a diverse faculty as a necessary component in achieving excellence. It seeks to ensure that its faculty represents a sufficient range of background and experience to create a deep, broad, and vigorous intellectual environment. The University will retain a place among the best public land-grant universities only if it reaches out to and represents the full spectrum of diverse and talented individuals available.

Moreover, as a federal contractor, it is also the case that the University must follow government regulations for an affirmative action program: An affirmative action program is a management tool designed to ensure equal employment opportunity. A central premise underlying affirmative action is that, absent discrimination, over time a contractor's workforce, generally, will reflect the gender, racial and ethnic profile of the labor pools from which the contractor recruits and selects (41 Code of Federal Regulations 60-2.10 [a] [1]). Pursuant to Article 1, Section 30 of the Nebraska Constitution, nothing in that amendment shall prohibit action that must be taken to establish or maintain eligibility for a federal program, where ineligibility would result in a loss of federal funds to the state.

The Board of Regents policy goals pertaining to Gender Equity were issued in 1991 and reconfirmed in 1998. The Board of Regents policy goals pertaining to Equity for People of Color were issued in 1993 and reconfirmed in 1997.

In 2007, the faculty and administrative leadership of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln collectively discussed and adopted as guiding principles a set of seven core values, which are interdependent. We decided that UNL values learning that prepares students for lifetime success and leadership and that UNL values excellence pursued without compromise. These goals cannot be met unless UNL values a diversity of ideas and people and unless UNL values engagement with academic, business, and civic communities throughout Nebraska and the world.

In order to meet our legislated obligations to both the University and the State of Nebraska, and in order to be true to our own core values, the academic leadership of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln must identify and implement best practices to recruit and retain a diverse faculty, as defined by Federal, State, and Board of Regents policy documents cited above.

Effective December 10, 2008, Article I, Section 30, was added to the Nebraska Constitution and provides in part that the state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, gender or ethnicity. While it appears this amendment prohibits hiring decisions using race or gender as a factor, it does not reduce our obligations under federal law to assure that the pools from which we hire are as diverse as possible. The best practices outlined below appear to be not only within the actions remaining permissible, but become more important given the constitutional amendment.

Best practices to retain and recruit a diverse faculty will be successful if they:

• Are actively endorsed, promoted, supported and recognized by the academic leadership of the University, including the SVCAA, the VCIANR, College Deans, Department Chairs and Heads, and faculty leaders;
• Focus on processes that work within and resonate with UNL's academic culture of excellence;
• Become an integral part of UNL's strategic planning process.

UNL's success will also depend on our ability to engage and cultivate faculty support and on our readiness to instill accountability by assessing and rewarding demonstrated commitment and contributions to the goal of increasing the diversity of the University community.

II.  Why address this issue now?
UNL is part of a consortium of research universities who have contracted with The Advisory Board, a group of research consultants, to provide research reports on major issues identified as critical by the Chief Academic Officers of partner universities. The Advisory Board was asked to provide a research report on the best practices for recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty, an issue identified as a top priority by the Chief Academic Officers. On May 12, 2008, consultants from The Advisory Board came to Lincoln and presented their finding to a large group of chairs, heads, and deans, as well as to the Senior Administrative Team of the University.

The final report included descriptions of breakthrough achievements, the lessons learned from these institutions, and innovative practices that have led to success in recruiting and retaining women and underrepresented minority faculty. UNL's Senior Administrative Team has endorsed the report, which will now provide the basis for the academic leadership of the university to develop action plans and implement strategies to further diversify our faculty.

III.  How will UNL move forward?
The Advisory Board report has brought to us strategies that can lead to success, hallmarks of what our consultants term breakthrough performance. UNL strives to be among the top performers in all its endeavors and will develop action plans designating timelines and responsibilities to implement proven strategies across four different stages of faculty recruitment and retention processes. The following outline of these stages includes some of the report's proven strategies:

1. SCOUT
   • cultivate relationships with other universities, and identify and adopt feeder departments that produce significant numbers of minority Ph.D.s;
   • identify and attend national association conferences with large numbers of minority members to establish networks;
   • host diverse scholars on campus.
     
2. SEARCH
   
   • develop intentional strategic plans for pro-active recruitment for all searches, i.e. personally contact and encourage diverse talented applicants to apply for positions;
   • pledge a university-wide commitment to achieving a large and diverse pool of talent for every position;
   • closely monitor and review each search and, if necessary, intervene in the process at an appropriate point if the pool is not sufficiently diverse, based on data available from, e.g. The Survey of Earned Doctorates, IPEDS, or other recognized data bases. Intervention should be an option that academic administrators can exercise at all administrative levels of the process.
3. SUPPORT
   
   • continue to resource the recruiting effort through diversity dollars;
   • cultivate awareness of the importance of resolving dual career issues;
   • contact finalists before on-campus interviews to discuss resources available on campus and in the community.
4. SUSTAIN
   
   • insure appropriate mentoring for success;
   • institute a meeting with the college dean (structure to be determined by the college dean) for all faculty by their third year on the tenure track to review the tenure process and address questions/concerns;
   • assess performance and progress in retaining faculty;
   • keep abreast of recruitment and retention practices.
     

In order to move forward, UNL deans are charged to work with department chairs and/or faculty to develop action plans for each of the strategies adopted.

An Administrative Planning Group will be a resource for this initiative and be responsible for helping deans develop, disseminate, and assess strategies, action plans, and benchmarks for success. The members of the Administrative Planning Group include: Barbara Couture, SVCAA; John Owens, VCIANR; Evelyn Jacobson, AVCAA; Susan Fritz, AVCIANR; and Linda Crump, Assistant to the Chancellor and Director, EAD.

The UNL Senior Administrative Team will consider and advise on strategies proposed for campus adoption by the Administrative Planning Group.

A Faculty Advisory Committee will be appointed by the Chancellor and will provide feedback and advice to the Administrative Planning Group on action plans as they are developed. Members of the committee will be tenured faculty with a demonstrated commitment to diversity. In order to insure that the feedback provided is representative of UNL faculty, the Committee will be charged to inform and consult constituent faculty groups through a Blackboard web site, through occasional open forums of ongoing activity on this initiative, and through an annual report on the outcomes of the initiative, which will be posted on the Blackboard site. Constituent groups include: The Chancellor's Commission on the Status of Women; The Chancellor's Commission on the Status of People of Color; Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT); the Faculty Senate; and the Internal Advisory Board to UNL's National Science Foundation ADVANCE program.

Adopted April, 2009 following review by:

      UNL Senior Administrative Team - November 22, 2008
      UNL Deans Council - March 24, 2009
      UNL Academic Planning Committee - January 28, 2009
      UNL Faculty Senate - February 18, 2009

Programs of Excellence Annual Report posted

The 2008 annual report for the university's Programs of Excellence can be found on the web at http://www.unl.edupoe/annual_reports/.

Due to budget restraints, there was no new competition for POE awards this year. UNL is in the process of reviewing and possibly renewing some existing requests.

Highlights of the 2008 report, which showcases the seventh year of POE activities, show that programs with POE funding:

• Generated more than $38.1 million in external grants funding.
• Attracted 21 new faculty members to UNL.
• Produced more than 650 scholarly publications.
  

Some 47 classes and 1,394 students were served by POE programs and 653 students used POE facilities. Faculty in POE programs submitted 307 grant applications and 197 received funding. Additionally, POE programs purchased $2.2 million in new equipment. Every college at UNL participated in at least one POE project; some projects also included units from UNMC.

Programs of Excellence funding has made a critical difference in promoting excellence, supporting strategic investment, and improving the quality of education at UNL.

UNL's Digital Measures Project leads to leadership consortium

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has joined with five other institutions to form a Digital Measures users' group. UNL has signed a 5-year contract with Digital Measures (DM) to host Activity Insight, a faculty activity and reporting database. Digital Measures has hundreds of clients around the world. Recently UNL was invited to join University of Connecticut, Pennsylvania State, Ohio State, University of Iowa, and the University of Georgia in an effort to build a consortium of DM clients to help coordinate larger scale upgrade and enhancement requests for Activity Insight. Other campuses that have recently been invited to join include Cornell, Virginia Tech and the University of Minnesota.

At UNL, the Academic Affairs office has hired and trained students to enter faculty Curriculum Vitae information into the Digital Measures database. We have also made progress in developing automatic transfer of data from SAP and NUGrant into Digital Measures Activity Insight to reduce the amount of data entry required by faculty. Our student workers are entering publication and presentation data from faculty CVs. Currently we are updating the database for College of Business Administration. Libraries will be next. Arts & Sciences and Engineering are beginning plans to adopt the system. We plan to have the entire campus using the system within three years.

You can find more information about the company by visiting this web site:
http://www.digitalmeasures.com.

ADVANCE-Nebraska Project makes strides during first academic year

A $3.8 million ADVANCE grant from the National Science Foundation, announced Sept. 1, 2008, will help UNL create an environment where all Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) faculty thrive. The grant supports best practices to increase recruitment and retention of women STEM faculty and to study what practices best support their academic success. Cultivating a world-class and broadly inclusive science and engineering workforce for the nation is one of National Science Foundation's goals. Since its inception in 2001, ADVANCE program grants have been successful at 30 major universities in the United States. We are honored to participate in this prestigious and strategically important enterprise.

The Principal Investigator is Barbara Couture, Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Co-PIs are: Namas Chandra, Associate Dean of the College of Engineering; Mary Anne Holmes, Professor of Practice, Geosciences and ADVANCE-Nebraska Director; David Manderscheid, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Mathematics; and Julia McQuillan, Associate Professor of Sociology.

ADVANCE-Nebraska accomplishments since Sept. 1 include:

• Four new Dual Career couples on campus: three women in engineering (two Asian, one Latina) and one in mathematics. Their spouses are: two in engineering, one in physics, and one in math.
• Recruitment and initiation of two committees of tenured faculty:
  1. RECRUIT-Nebraska compiles data on the numbers of women in applicant pools for likely STEM positions at UNL, and will compile and disseminate Best Practices to promote recruiting a broad, diverse, excellent applicant pool.
  2. PROMOTE-Nebraska, compiles data on the presence and impact of implicit bias in evaluations, and will disseminate Best Practices to reduce the impact of implicit bias during evaluation of applications and tenure and promotion portfolios.
• Development and launch of the ADVANCE web site: http://advance.unl.edu.
• New wording on all advertisements for faculty positions (this is one way we've changed the way the institution does business): The University of Nebraska has an active National Science Foundation ADVANCE gender equity program, and is committed to a pluralistic campus community through affirmative action, equal opportunity, work-life balance, and dual care.
• Completion of three Paths to Success Luncheons, with two internal and one external speaker:
  1. Anne Vidaver, Plant Pathology (60 attendees) An Iconic Perspective on Women in Science, or, I didn't I know I was a Pioneer;
  2. Kim Espy, Office of Research and Psych (40 attendees) Walking the Career-Family Tightrope
  3. Heidi Schellman, Northwestern University and Fermi Labs Physicist, (36 attendees) No Daughter of Mine is Going to CalTech!
• Faculty participation in COACh professional development workshop (20 attendees): Strategic Performance: The Art of Strategic Persuasion and Strategies for Leading Change by Lee Warren, Associate Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University http://bokcenter.harvard.edu), and Nancy Houfek, Head of Voice & Speech for the American Repertory Theatre (http://www.amrep.org/iatt/houfek.html) at Harvard University.
• Launch and distribution of an E-newsletter, now sent to all faculty in STEM disciplines.  See archives of the newsletter.
• Inauguration of a summer writing retreat. Details about the writing retreat can be found on the ADVANCE-Nebraska web site.

UNL's progress on Spencer and Teagle Assessment Project wins high praise

UNL recently received kudos from the director of a national project aimed at improving undergraduate education at research universities.

The national project, Systematic Improvement of Undergraduate Education in Research Universities, is led by Duke University's Robert J. Thompson Jr., a professor of psychology. UNL is one of 10 major research universities selected through a competitive process to participate in the project. The project is funded by the Spencer Foundation and the Teagle Foundation, both of which aim to help improve higher education.

Thompson visited UNL earlier this semester and met with a number individuals. Thompson said UNL's project is unique among all participating universities and he called it remarkable.

UNL's project, co-directed by Chris Gallagher, professor of English, and Shari Stenberg, associate professor of English, is developing an assessment rubric that could be used as a model to assess outcomes for the new Achievement-Centered Education program (ACE). Their particular focus, in the pilot project, is on the writing outcomes. In addition to the Spencer and Teagle funding, Chancellor Harvey Perlman contributed funds granted by the University of Nebraska Foundation and Undergraduate Studies Dean Rita Kean also contributed funding.

The Spencer and Teagle foundations are interested in the concept of spread of effect. That means that faculty teach other faculty to encourage change throughout an organization. The hope is that the assessment model will be emulated by others at UNL and potentially other institutions.

Thompson particularly praised the ACE program, saying that UNL has designed an outcomes-based curriculum with an assessment system that will feedback and improve instruction.

Gallagher is leaving UNL at the end of the academic year. Stenberg will continue as project co-director with Erin Blankenship, associate professor of statistics.

Rosowski, Douglas, Cather, Bessey professorships announced

Four faculty, who are the inaugural recipients of new Rosowski or Weaver/Douglas professors, were honored at UNL's annual Honors Convocation April 26.  The four faculty with new professorships are:

1. Viacheslav I. Adamchuk, Biological Systems Engineering, Susan J. Rosowski Associate Professor;
2. Melissa J. Homestead, English and Women's and Gender Studies, Susan J. Rosowski Associate Professor;
3. Jim Lewis, Mathematics, Aaron Douglas Professor of Teaching Excellence; and
4. Helen Moore, Sociology and Women's and Gender Studies, Aaron Douglas Professor of Teaching Excellence;

Three other faculty members earned either Cather or Bessey professorship distinctions.  They are:

1. Sidnie White Crawford, Classics and Religious Studies, Cather professor;
2. Patrick Dussault, Chemistry, Bessey professor; and
3. Evgeny Tsymbal, Physics and Astronomy,  Bessey professor.

Rosowski Professorship

The Rosowski professorship recognizes faculty at the associate professor level who have achieved distinguished records of scholarship or creative activity and who show exceptional promise for future excellence. This professorship is open only to associate professors who have no other named professorship. It is a five-year professorship and carries a $3,000 annual stipend. The Rosowski Professorship is named in honor of the late Susan J. Rosowski (1942-2004), who at the time of her death was the Adele Hall Distinguished Professor of English at UNL. She established the (Willa) Cather Project, and was general editor for the scholarly edition of Cather's works published by the University of Nebraska Press, a multi-volume project.

Viacheslav Adamchuk was selected as a new Rosowski Professor. His areas of interest involve precision agriculture and include work in global positioning and geographic information systems, data acquisition and processing, and problem solving for engineers. His research interests include development of automated systems for mapping soil properties on-the-go; and accuracy assessment and uncertainty analysis of techniques used for site-specific management. He also has an extension appointment that includes on-the-go mapping of soil properties, agroeconomic benefits of variable rate technology, management and analysis of geo-spatial data, and auto-guidance of agricultural vehicles. He joined the UNL faculty in 2000. He holds a B.S. from National Agricultural University of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine; and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Purdue University. He is also a Professional Registered Engineer, Nebraska.

Melissa Homestead has also been named a new Rosowski Professor. Her research and teaching focus is on American literature from the early republic through early 20th century, particularly women's authorship and the history of the book. She has written a book and numerous journal articles and book chapters on American women authors. While continuing to work on antebellum women authors, she has returned her scholarly energies to Willa Cather, her favorite author since high school. At UNL, she has taught graduate seminars on American women's print authorship and on Cather. Her current research focuses on the creative partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis and on Catharine Sedgwick and the business of letters. She contributes to the work of the Cather Project, chairs the English department assessment committee, serves on the Women's and Gender Studies advisory committee and the Chancellor's Commission on the Status of Women, and a is member of the Board of Governors of the Center for Great Plains Studies. She is also vice president of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers. Homestead has been a faculty member at UNL since 2005. She holds an A.B. from Smith College and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

Aaron Douglas or John E. Weaver Professorships

The Aaron Douglas or John E. Weaver Professorships for Teaching Excellence are awarded to faculty holding the full professor rank who demonstrate sustained and extraordinary levels of teaching excellence and national visibility for instructional activities and/or practice. Faculty chosen for this professorship may elect either the Douglas or Weaver name.   This year's winners both selected the Aaron Douglas designation.

• The Aaron Douglas Professorship honors NU alumnus Douglas (1899-1979), who was the first African American to earn a degree in art from NU and is considered a pre-eminent artist of the Harlem Renaissance movement. A native of Topeka, Kan., Douglas earned a B.F.A. from the university in 1922. He founded the Department of Art at Fisk University, where he taught from 1937-1966.

• The Weaver Professorship honors the late John E. Weaver (1884-1956). Weaver was a leading expert on grasses, both as natural populations and as crops. During his 37-year career as an NU faculty member, Weaver published many works regarding plants and ecology of prairies and published the first American ecology textbook. An Iowa native, Weaver earned his B.S. and master's degrees from the University of Nebraska, and his doctorate from the University of Minnesota. He joined the faculty in 1915 and retired in 1952.
  

Jim Lewis directs UNL's Center for Science, Mathematics and Computer Education. He chaired the Math Department from 1988 to 2003; in 1998, the department won the University-wide Department Teaching Award and an NSF Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. He has received many teaching awards including the University's OTICA award and membership in UNL's Academy of Distinguished Teachers.

It is important to respect your students, to have very high expectations, to believe in their ability to meet your expectations, and to be very supportive of your students, he said.

Lewis has received numerous accolades for his support for opportunities for women in the mathematical sciences. For two decades, his work has focused on the mathematical education of teachers. He has been PI or co-PI for many NSF grants including the Nebraska Math and Science Initiative, Math Matters, a grant to revise the mathematics education of future elementary school teachers at UNL, and two Math Science Partnerships, the Math in the Middle Institute Partnership, and NebraskaMATH. Lewis has been a leader in math education on the national level. He has served as president of the UNL Faculty Senate and president of the UNL chapter of AAUP. Lewis also received the George Howard-Louise Pound Award for service to the university. Lewis joined UNL in 1971. He holds a B.S. and Ph.D. from Louisiana State University.

Helen Moore's research focuses on educational stratification, including race, social class and gender dynamics as they link to economic outcomes. From 1999-2004 she edited the American Sociological Association quarterly journal Teaching Sociology. Her most recent publications include Testing Whiteness: No School Left Behind (Washington University Law and Policy Review) and a co-authored article in the Journal of Higher Education (2009) Maintaining Credibility and Authority as an Instructor of Color in Diversity-Education Classrooms: A Qualitative Inquiry.  Her current research projects include a book manuscript, Schooling Girls: Queuing Women, (forthcoming from Paradigm Publishers) and a mixed-methods study of the teaching careers of minority faculty. Moore was co-director of the UNL Preparing Future Faculty program for advanced doctoral students (2003-2008) and was co-director of a National Institute of Mental Health Career Opportunities in Research grant for American Indian undergraduate students (2003-2006). She was elected president of the Midwest Sociological Society (2007-2008), and is currently chair of the Society's Teaching and Learning Committee. Moore joined UNL's faculty in 1979. She holds a B.S., an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside.

Charles A. Bessey and Willa S. Cather Professorships

The Charles A. Bessey and Willa S. Cather professorships are awarded to full professors with distinguished records of research or creative activity and who hold no other named professorship. The professorship is for a five-year term and carries and annual $5,000 stipend. Faculty chose either the Cather or Bessey designation. Willa Cather, a University of Nebraska alumna and winner of the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for her novel One of Ours, is widely recognized as one of America's premiere authors. Charles Bessey, an NU professor and administrator at the turn of the 20th century, was a pioneering botanist and educator. Recognized for his pioneering science, including among other interests the ecology of the prairie, he served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and editor of Science magazine.

Sidnie White Crawford, a Willa Cather Professor, is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls. She was one of the youngest members of the international team responsible for the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, for which she edited nine manuscripts of Deuteronomy, four manuscripts titled Reworked Pentateuch, and one manuscript that is the source for the Temple Scroll. She is the author of numerous books and articles on the Scrolls, including her most recent, Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times, forthcoming from Eerdmans Press. Crawford's areas of scholarly expertise are in Second Temple Judaism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible. She has written extensively on various aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the Rewritten Bible texts, and the role of women in the Qumran community. She teaches in the areas of Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, Biblical Hebrew and feminist criticism of the Bible. She joined UNL in 1997. She holds a B.A. from Trinity College; a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Patrick Dussault, a Charles Bessey Professor, joined UNL in 1988. He holds a B.S. from the University of California at Irvine and a Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology. Dussault's original research focus was the reactions of fats in membranes, but a chance encounter diverted him.

Peroxides have a highly reactive oxygen-oxygen bond; for example, hydrogen peroxide is easily handled as a 3 percent solution, but is a highly dangerous rocket fuel in pure form. There remains a lack of effective methods for preparing more complicated peroxides, which play important roles in biology, medicine, and homeland security. My group began our research assuming that success would depend upon skill in handling touchy molecules, but this was only partially correct. The major challenge proved to the limited 'menu' of reagents (ingredients) available for installing peroxides. Exploring this challenge has involved us in areas as wide-ranging as explosives detection, new energetic reactions, and synthesis of potential new agents against drug-resistant malaria.

Synthetic chemists view molecules in much the same way as architects and engineers view buildings and bridges; we are always looking for new and interesting structures. In this spirit, I want to thank my many collaborators who have broadened my molecular horizons beyond peroxides to include fascinating problems in fungal biology, food science, nutrition, materials science, and plant pathology.

Evgeny Tsymbal, a Charles Bessey Professor, is director of the Nebraska Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, which includes more than 20 faculty members from five departments across the College of Arts and Sciences and College of Engineering at UNL. Tsymbal joined UNL in 2002.

Tsymbal's research focuses on computational materials science aiming at the understanding of fundamental properties of advanced ferromagnetic and ferroelectric nanostructures and materials relevant to nanoelectronics and spintronics, relatively new research fields promising to revolutionize electronic and data storage industries. His research is internationally recognized, and he has published in high-profile scientific journals such as Science, Nature Nanotechnology, and Physical Review Letters, and given invited presentations at international conferences such as American Physical Society and Materials Research Society Meetings, and Vacuum Research Society, European Society, and Gordon Research Conferences.

Tsymbal has been a Principal Investigator of research projects funded by the National Science Foundation, Seagate Technology, Nanoelectronics Research Initiative of Semiconductor Research Corporation, and the Office of Naval Research. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a fellow of the Institute of Physics, UK, and a recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Research and Creativity Award (ORCA) in 2007. He holds an MS.c. from Moscow State University, and a Ph.D. from the Russian Academy of Sciences, both in Moscow, Russia.

See the program from the UNL Honors Convocation April 26, 2009.