Faculty Awards Mark Founders Day

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 22, 2011) − Several University of Kentucky educators and others will be honored with teaching and public service awards today in UK's first Founders Day Award Ceremony at 4 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the Singletary Center for the Arts. The campus community is invited.

Presentation of the Provost's Awards for teaching and service has been combined with the presentation of the Sullivan, Sturgill and Kirwan awards, which were traditionally given during May Commencement. Due to changes in Commencement, those awards are now included in this ceremony that also celebrates UK's Founders Day. The university was created by legislative act on this date in 1865.

The award winners in the different categories are as follows.

Algernon Sydney Sullivan Medallion, given to graduating students and a non-student for their dedication to community service.

Non-student winner: Deborah Goonan served as a full-time volunteer with the Christian Appalachian Project in Jackson County and a social worker with Lexington's Family Preservation Program before becoming director of outreach at the Cathedral of Christ the King Church in 2000. Goonan has traveled to Ghana to help build Habitat for Humanity houses, a church and a library for villagers in need. She has helped refugee families settle in Lexington, in partnership with Kentucky Refugee Ministries. She has raised money and led volunteer missions to Santo Domingo, Ecuador, to build Habitat for Humanity houses and support a UK Medical Center clinic there.

Sullivan Medallion, graduating student winner: Anna Lisa Hays has served more than three years on the board of the Newman Foundation where she has also volunteered as a Sunday school teacher and been involved in service trips and leadership programs. She has served the UK campus as the Student Government Association's deputy chief of staff of organization outreach, where she has helped raise money for victims of the Haiti earthquake among many other outreach activities. Hays has been a FUSION and UK Best Buddies volunteer, Dance Blue participant, UK 101 peer instructor, philanthropy chair of Delta Delta Delta sorority and much more. She recently accepted a prestigious two-year teaching assignment with Teach for America, where she will work for an inner-city school as a special education teacher.

Albert D. and Elizabeth H. Kirwan Memorial Prize, awarded to a full-time faculty member for outstanding contributions to original research or (creative) scholarship:

Daret K. St. Clair is professor of toxicology in the UK Graduate Center for Toxicology and holds the James Graham Brown Chair in Neurosciences. She was appointed associate director for basic research at the Markey Cancer Center earlier this year. Her research examines the fundamental mechanisms by which certain molecules contribute to tissue damage and cancer. St. Clair is an international leader in the study of antioxidant enzymes and their role in disease conditions. She is currently principal investigator on four grants and is a co-investigator on three additional grants. She has a total of 139 peer-reviewed publications, 57 of which have been published in the 2006-2010 period.
 

William B. Sturgill Award, presented to a graduate faculty member for outstanding contributions to graduate education:

Michael Bardo has served as an outstanding teacher and mentor to students since joining the UK Department of Psychology in 1982. He has published nearly 200 empirical articles and chapters, and has edited two books. His research has been funded continuously for 34 years, and he has been the principal investigator on grants totaling more than $17 million in awards. He has served as the scientific director of the UK Center for Prevention Research and the director of the UK Center for Drug Abuse Research Translation, and he currently serves as special assistant to the dean for translational and interdisciplinary research. Bardo has graduated 14 doctoral students, and trained six postdoctoral students and one research scientist. He has an extraordinary record of retention; 82 percent of the students who have trained with him have successfully completed their doctorates.

Provost Public Scholar Award, recognizes faculty and professional staff whose careers are marked by sustained community engagement that successfully addresses important community issues:

Marcia Stanhope is a professor in the UK College of Nursing and holds the Good Samaritan Chair in Community Health Nursing. She has served the college as coordinator of the Family Nurse Practitioner Program, director of the Division of Community Health, director of Continuing Education, co-director and director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice Program, and associate dean. She created the Good Samaritan Nursing Center, which focuses on meeting health care needs and promoting health education in underserved populations such as the homeless. In partnership with the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department and the Hope Center, the Good Samaritan Nursing Center provides nursing staff for community-based clinics in Fayette and surrounding counties, serving children, adults and families, in addition to elementary and middle school children through school nursing programs.

Provost Distinguished Service Professors, honors consistently high level of achievement in contributions to academic disciplines and the university:

Debra Harley, professor of rehabilitation counseling and chair of the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling in the College of Education, has an impressive record of research and scholarship. She has disseminated her work through 79 refereed journal articles, 20 book chapters, one book, numerous non-refereed publications, 37 national and international conferences and 36 regional, state and local conferences. In addition to teaching at the graduate level in her own department, she has taught courses for the Discovery Seminar Program, the Honors Program and the Women's Studies Program. Harley has served on 25 doctoral committees, 23 master's thesis committees and 405 non-thesis committees. She has won a number of national honors including being named Educator of the Year by the National Council on Rehabilitation Education. Harley also has been active within the university outside of her college, having served on 35 university-level committees.

Thomas Foster (awarded posthumously), a long-time professor in the College of Pharmacy, also held appointments in the colleges of Medicine and Public Health at the time of his death in October 2010. During his tenure in Pharmacy, he served in numerous capacities including as chair of the Clinical Pharmacy Division, director of the Drug Product Evaluation Unit, which he also founded, and director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Science And Technology. He also served as executive chairman for the Medical Institutional Review Board, and during his leadership UK's IRB received full accreditation status. Foster's service extended beyond UK; he was active in many state and national organizations, and won a number of prestigious awards including Kentucky Pharmacist of the Year and the U.S. Pharmacopeia Beal Award for Distinguished Volunteer Service.

Robert McKnight is professor and chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health in the College of Public Health and is a national leader in agricultural safety and health. He serves as director of the Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention, located at UK and one of six such research and education centers in the nation serving farmers, farm workers and farm families. Most of its funding is secured by McKnight from the Centers for Disease Control's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. McKnight's impact in the agricultural community includes developing Kentucky's first migrant farm worker health care program, creating a service based project for women and farm safety, and helping establish community coalitions to promote Hispanic health services in Tennessee and Kentucky.

Richard Milich, a professor in the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a leading international authority on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He has published 135 articles on ADHD, and his research, which concerns a variety of issues affecting ADHD patients, has attracted several million dollars of federal funding. Milich has served as administrative director of the Center for Drug Abuse Research Translation and as director of the Children at Risk research group. He is involved in many professional organizations and university committees and serves on the editorial boards of a number of professional journals. Among his community service efforts, Milich has donated his expertise to CHADD, a parent support group for ADHD. Milich's teaching impacts undergraduate and graduate students alike. He anchors the honors thesis program for undergraduates and has chaired 25 doctoral dissertation committees and 20 master's thesis committees. He also has won the Kentucky Psychological Association's Outstanding Mentor Award in the graduate division.

Deborah Reed, a professor in the colleges of Nursing and Public Health, is a nationally recognized expert in agricultural injury prevention, particularly among the elderly. She was awarded the Southern Nursing Research Society John Hartford Geriatric Research Award for her research on aging farmers. She has garnered more than $5.5 million in research funding and disseminated her research findings in a variety of peer-reviewed journals as well as paper and poster presentations at 50 national and 24 international conferences. Her teaching earns consistently high marks in teaching evaluations in master's and Ph.D. courses, and she has mentored students in the College of Nursing's Undergraduate Research Intern Program since its inception in 1992. Reed also is active in service to the university and community as well being involved in professional organizations.
 

Joseph Van Sickels is a professor in the Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Department of Oral Health Science, College of Dentistry. His research and scholarly activity include more than 145 articles in refereed journals, more than 20 chapters in text books and presentation of more than 245 invited lectures in 22 countries. In the teaching realm, Van Sickels is regularly asked by faculty to lecture in their courses throughout the dental curriculum, and he supervises dental students and residents in the outpatient clinic and operating room. He's active in service to the university and in national professional organizations having served on various college, university and medical center committees as well as numerous editorial boards for journals around the world. Van Sickels also shares his expertise with the less fortunate, having traveled to Mexico for more than 24 years to provide surgical care for children with cleft palates.

Bruce Webb, professor in the College of Agriculture's Department of Entomology, has published 74 articles in various professional publications and made more than 70 research presentations around the world. He's attracted more than $7 million in current grant funding. Webb's research had a particularly profound impact on the horse industry in 2001 and 2002 when he helped determine the role of the Eastern Tent Caterpillar in an outbreak of mare reproductive loss syndrome. He also is a leader in commercialization of his biotech research. In the area of teaching, Webb has a strong record of graduate training while also playing a role in undergraduate instruction by serving as director of the biotechnology program from 2004 to 2009 and mentoring undergraduate research throughout his career including sponsoring one of UK's Beckman Fellows.

Eight faculty members and one teaching assistant will receive the 2011 Provost's Outstanding Teaching Awards, which recognize special dedication and outstanding performance in the classroom or laboratory. The faculty recipients are:

-- Jane Jensen, Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, College of Education;

-- David Silverstein, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, College of Engineering;

-- Paul Vincelli, Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture;

-- John Wilson, Department of Behavioral Science, College of Medicine;

-- Eric Myrup, Department of History, College of Arts and Sciences;

-- Seungahn Nah, Department of Community and Leadership Development, College of Agriculture;

-- Lynn Kelso, Department of Nursing Instruction, College of Nursing; and

-- Cyndy Harbett Miller, Department of Communication, College of Communications and Information Studies.

-- Teaching assistant award winner: Emily Dotson, Department of Gender and Women's Studies, College of Arts and Sciences.

University of Kentucky President Lee T. Todd Jr., Provost Kumble Subbaswamy, deans and department chairs will present the awards.