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College Gains Two New Distinguished Professors
President Bowman has appointed to the position of Distinguished Professor two of the College’s most outstanding faculty members: Scott K. Sakaluk, Professor of Biological Sciences, and John C. Shields, Professor of English. The Distinguished Professor designation allows the University to honor faculty members of distinction. Among the criteria for appointment are achieving national recognition for scholarly research, oustanding teaching, and significant public service. Distinguished Professors are invited to deliver one public lecture, receive a $1,000 budget per annum in support of activities as Distinguished Professor, and continue to hold the title throughout their service to Illinois State. “I was thrilled, but certainly not surprised to hear that the two distinguished professors named this year were Professor Sakaluk and Professor Shields,” said Dean Olson. "These two scholars could earn this title at any university, as they have both had a tremendous impact on the direction of research in their respective disciplines and at the same time are superior teachers in the classroom."


Distinguished Professor
Scott Sakaluk

A Professor of Zoology, Scott Sakaluk is an internationally renowned scholar and a master teacher who has been on the Illinois State faculty since 1987. Considered a pioneer in behavioral ecology, he has made fundamental discoveries in his field, earning the respect of his colleagues around the world as the foremost expert in his research area. Sakaluk was named Outstanding University Researcher in 2002. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and he was twice named an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow (1993-95, 2001-02). He is currently editor-in-chief of one of the world’s most prestigious international journals of animal behavior, Ethology.

Sakaluk has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brock University and his doctorate from the University of Toronto. He did his post-doctoral work at the University of Arizona. He has earned the praise of his colleagues and students as a superb teacher and mentor who consistently receives outstanding evaluations.


Distinguished Professor
John Shields

John Shields revolutionized early American literary studies by refiguring the lens of analysis employed by generations of critics. In The American Aeneas: Classical Origins of the American Self, Shields thoroughly illustrates that the tradition of American literary criticism has been blinded by what he calls the Adamic (or Judaeo-Christian) myth and has ignored the influence of the classical (or secular) on the formation of the country, its literary tradition, and the American identity. This book is considered a paradigm-shifting work that completely overturned disciplinary assumption about 18th-and 19th-century American literature. In 2003, Shields’ book won Honorable Mention for the prestigious Harry Levin Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association, and was chosen by Choice as one of the most outstanding academic books of the year in 2001.

Shields has also done groundbreaking work in reclaiming the literary works of Phillis Wheatley. Wheatley was an early African-American writer who is now read as an important poet with Shields’ work helping elevate Wheatley to a position of national stature. His doctoral work on Wheatley culminated in the publishing of The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley, now in its 14th edition.

Shields came to Illinois State in 1979 after completing his Ph.D. in English at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. He received the first National Endowment for the Humanities given to an Illinois State English faculty member and has served as a NEH Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, Yale University and Princeton University as well as a Fellow of The Society for the Humanities at Cornell University.
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