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Volume 3, Issue 28: April 16, 2007
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Adlai E. Stevenson Hall | The endowment for the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Awards has surpassed $115,000, according to CAS Director of Development Dorothy Witte. Dean Olson established the awards in 2004 and 2005 to acknowledge excellence in teaching, research, and service, and the College's advisory boards have taken the lead in helping to raise sufficient funds to fully endow the awards. “We have a truly impressive faculty and staff, and it is important to recognize their most outstanding work,” said Dean Olson. “I hope these awards will help convince our most talented faculty and staff to remain at Illinois State University for many years, even when they are wooed by other institutions.”
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Volume 3, Issue 28: April 16, 2007
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R.K. Jayaswal |
Professor of Biological Sciences Radheshyam K. Jayaswal will deliver “Evolution of Super Bug Staphylococcus aureus: How Far From the Pre-antibiotic Era?”, the College's Spring Arts and Sciences Lecture, on Monday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. in the Bone Student Center Old Main Room. The Arts and Sciences Lecture Series was established in 1968 as a means of honoring Arts and Sciences faculty members. It is a peer-determined award that recognizes the significant national and international reputation of a scholar and/or teacher in the College. Being chosen by one's peers to be the Arts and Sciences Lecturer is, alongside the Dean's Award, the highest honor that the College of Arts and Sciences can bestow on one of its faculty.
Jayaswal received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and physics and his master’s degree in molecular biology from Bombay University and his PhD from Purdue University. He came to ISU in 1988 and established an innovative research program focusing on the molecular biology of disease-causing bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. In the past two decades, the worldwide spread of methicillin-resistant and now vancomycin-resistant S. aureus strains has caused a significant clinical problem. Jayaswal uses genomics approaches to identify new targets for the development of novel chemotherapeutic agents to control the growth of S. aureus.
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Volume 3, Issue 28: April 16, 2007
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Carl Wenning | Carl Wenning, coordinator of the Physics Teacher Education Program, visited Chile from March 24 to April 1 to review mathematics and science teacher preparation practices at three national universities as part of a three-member interdisciplinary team invited by the Chilean Academy of Sciences. He visited the University of Concepción, Catholic University of Valparaiso, and the Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences in Santiago. Faculty members and students from the University of Chile and the University of Santiago were also in attendance at official functions. The visit has resulted in a number of recommendations for change in the Chilean teacher preparation system.
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Volume 3, Issue 28: April 16, 2007
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Curt Livesay | Curt Livesay, a graduate student in the School of Communication, received the Top Student Paper in the Interpersonal Division and the Top Debut Paper awards at the Central States Communication Association’s Annual Conference held March 27th-April 1st in Minneapolis. The paper “Emotional expressivity, psychological gender, and relational satisfaction: Towards a ‘recipe’ for satisfying romantic relationships,” looks at how factors such as how emotionally expressive one is, sex (male or female), gender (masculine, feminine, or androgynous), and how satisfied one is with the relationship work together to create a successful relationship. The paper was based on a study Livesay conducted last year in Dr. Sandra Metts' Seminar. Also at the conference, Livesay was elected at the Interpersonal Business Meeting to be one of the paper readers for the 2008 CSCA Conference to be held in Madison, WI.
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Volume 3, Issue 28: April 16, 2007
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Donald Schmidt, the"Dean of Green", with Wollemi Pine | The Illinois State University greenhouse held an Open House last month, with an unusual guest of honor: a plant named Wollemia Nobilis. Wollemia Nobilis, or Wollemi Pine, was thought to be extinct until it was “re-discovered” in a remote part of south eastern Australia in 1994. At this time, there are only a few living trees in the wild. The Wollemi Pine can grow up to 40 meters tall and have a trunk of one meter wide. One amazing characteristic of the Wollemi Pine is that every plant growing in the wild has the exact same DNA. The ISU green house acquired the plant from the National Geographic Society, which is selling them for 100 dollars each to raise money to protect the plant’s habitat. The ISU greenhouse is home to the University's wide ranging collection of plants, representing all the major taxonomic groups. Joseph Armstrong, Martha Cook, and Don Schmidt coordinated the open house.
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Volume 3, Issue 28: April 16, 2007
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Kathryn Conley Wehrmann | Dr. Kathryn Wehrmann, School of Social Work, received her PhD from the University of Illinois and joined the ISU faculty in 1998. On June 1 of this year, Wehrmann will be taking over the Presidency of the National Association of Social Workers Illinois Chapter. NASW is one of social work’s leading professional organizations. At both the state and national level, this organization is very active in advocating for social justice in the areas of employment, health and mental health care, and child welfare. Currently, Wehrmann is working on an evaluation of an Illinois Division of Mental Health Evidenced-Based Practice Initiative. What her evaluation study is trying to discover is whether the implementation of specific intervention models that have substantial research findings supporting their effectiveness are actually helping children and families more than interventions that are considered usual practice. “I appreciate the important work that Kathryn is doing in addressing the serious problems that children and their families are facing,” said Dean Olson.
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