The College of Liberal Arts is proud to announce the following awards and honors from Colorado State University, from the College of Liberal Arts, and from other areas around campus. These awards acknowledge the accomplishments and efforts of the outstanding faculty, staff, and volunteers within the College.
“Our faculty and staff in the College of Liberal Arts work diligently to help our students and our colleagues succeed, and they deserve a day where we come together as a community to celebrate their achievements,” said Dean Benjamin Withers. “Each year we are able to identity and raise up individuals for their outstanding accomplishments. Most of these awards require someone to recognize and nominate their colleagues, showing that the respect for their dedication is broad and deep. We all come away from this event enthused and motivated.”
Awards and Honors from College of Liberal Arts
These awards were given on April 24, 2019 at the Spring Faculty and Staff Awards Celebration
William E. Morgan Endowed Chair
The Morgan Endowed Chair is one of the highest faculty honors in the College of Liberal Arts. Created by friends and family of the late president, the Morgan Endowment provides funds to support scholarly work that advances the research, teaching, and service of the awardee and the mission of the College of Liberal Arts. In addition to a strong record of excellence in research and/or artistry, the awardee must demonstrate an excellent teaching record and a commitment to service and outreach. Previous Morgan Chairs have established the Public Lands History Center, the ACT Human Rights Film Festival, and the Regional Economic Development Institute at CSU.
Cindy O’Donnell-Allen, Department of English
With the support of the Morgan Chair, Dr. O’Donnell-Allen plans to establish the Colorado State Sustainable Teaching and Learning Collaborative (CSSTL). The Collaborative will support an interdisciplinary community of CSU faculty, staff, and students as well as historically marginalized high school students and the educators who serve them in the communities, rural and urban, where they live. CSSTL will extend CLA’s role as a leader in the scholarship of engagement into spaces critically needed by the State of Colorado and the nation.
John N. Stern Distinguished Professor Award
Recognizes faculty who have demonstrated exemplary accomplishments in all aspects of their professional responsibilities over an extended period of time.
Nancy Jianakoplos, Department of Economics
Prabha Unnithan, Department of Sociology
Professor Laureate
Established in 2018 to honor tenured faculty within the College of Liberal Arts for sustained scholarly and creative excellence, and exemplary commitment to one’s department and the College through service and teaching.
Steve Mumme, Department of Political Science
Jared Orsi, Department of History
Excellence in Teaching Awards
Recognizes one outstanding teacher in each of the following categories: Tenured Faculty, Tenure-Track Faculty, Special & Temporary Faculty, Graduate Teaching Assistant.
GTA: Melanie Wentzel Long, Department of Economics
Non-Tenure Track: Denise Apodaca, School of Music, Theatre, and Dance
Tenure-Track: Peter Harris, Department of Political Science
Tenured: Jeni Cross, Department of Sociology
Outstanding Service Award
Recognizes a member of the College who has gone beyond typical expectations to make outstanding service contributions to the University and to off-campus communities, demonstrating extraordinary leadership and professional service.
Eric Aoki, Department of Communication Studies
Distinction in Curricular Innovation Award
Recognizes faculty innovations in areas including but not limited to program development, instructional methods, service-learning, and technology integration.
Kristina Quynn, Department of English
Outstanding Engaged Scholarship Award
A new College award that builds on the College’s commitment to engaged scholarship. Engagement is scholarly, cuts across the mission of teaching, research, and service, and is reciprocal and mutually beneficial.
Tobi Jacobi, Department of English
Faculty Development Award
Provides support for outstanding research and/or creative activity, and is funded by participants in the Great Conversations Speaker Series.
Maricela DeMirjyn, Ethnic Studies
Maricela’s project, titled The Political and Cultural Praxis of Chicanx/Latinx Icons in Public Art Research and Book Manuscript, aspires to answer such important questions as: What present-day Chicanx and Latinx icons exist? How are the past and present Chicanx and Latinx figures connected? And have the target audiences for artworks displaying Chicanx and Latinx icons shifted or stayed the same?
Frédérique Grim, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Frederique’s project, Bilingual Education, Teacher Practices and Student, focuses on K-5 bilingual elementary school teachers and students in the state of Colorado, with languages ranging from French, to Mandarin and Spanish. This research is significant because it will give a clearer understanding on how to better train teachers in order to strengthen their practices, and in turn, children’s proficiency in two languages.
Pat Hastings, Sociology
Pat’s project, Rethinking Consumption Inequality: Investigating Differences by Types of Consumption and Consumers, will investigate what has happened to consumption inequality during the same timespan that income inequality has risen in the United States. In particular, he will focus on how trends in consumption inequality may vary across different types of consumption and different groups of consumers.
Ziyu Long, Communication Studies
Ziyu’s project, Communicatively Constituting Careers: Paradoxical Design Processes of Women Entrepreneurs in China, Denmark, and the United States, explores two principle research questions: How do women entrepreneurs in the United States perceive and enact resilience in their everyday performance of entrepreneurship? and How do women entrepreneurs in China navigate their local institutional environment of entrepreneurship?
Thomas Lundberg, Art and Art History
Tom’s award will support his participation in the International Fiber Art Fair in Seoul, South Korea. The weeklong exposition serves as a platform for cultural exchange for fiber artists from Asia and North America. The tenth‐anniversary event will occur May 24–31 at the Seoul Arts Center, a high‐profile complex for visual and performing arts. His exhibition will be one of twelve feature shows.
Tara Opsal, Sociology
Tara’s project, Penitentiaries on the Plains: Rural Economies, Identities, and the Carceral State, focuses on Evanston, Wyoming, as it transitions from an economy dependent on natural resource extraction to…whatever’s next.
Michael Pante, Anthropology
Michael’s project is titled, Study of Bone Marks on Human Remains. Michael is looking at, among other things, our ancient ancestors’ consumption of large animals for it speaks to the complex social structures of these populations. With this award, Michael will continue to revolutionize the way paleoanthropologists study marks on bones that could potentially reframe our current understanding of human evolution.
Staff Awards
Given for outstanding contributions and achievements by administrative and classified staff.
Administrative Professional Award
Karli Hansen, CLA Advising Center
State Classified Award
Magdeline Golnar, CLA Dean’s Office
Interdisciplinary Awards and Honors
School of Global Environmental Sustainability
The School of Global Environmental Sustainability at Colorado State University has selected the 2019-20 Fellows and Research Teams from a competitive field of proposals. The awards are intended to encourage interdisciplinary understanding of complex global environmental issues, foster collaborative cross-campus partnerships, and support sustainability research at CSU.
Sustainable Performance of Healthy and Efficient Residential Environments (SPHERE). Principal Investigators: John Volckens, Department of Mechanical Engineering; Delphine Farmer, Department of Chemistry; Sheryl Magzamen, Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences; and Ryan Scott, Department of Political Science. The mission of the team is to advance discovery and innovation that promote human health and well-being in residential homes.
Three Resident Fellows will also receive support from the School to advance studies in global environmental sustainability:
Jason Frazier, assistant professor of Graphic Design in the Department of Art and Art History, will examine the role of visual communications in public discourse as it relates to issues of climate change and the environment through a series of new creative works that focus on renewable energy, climate change, and the spirit of future technologies for creating a better world.
Laura Raynolds, professor in the Department of Sociology, will investigate how a sustainable livelihood approach is used to pursue social and environmental goals in non-governmental certification.
Joshua Sbicca, assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, will study the potential for prisons to advance food justice through gardening and food production in the United States.
Provost’s Council for Engagement
The Provost’s Council for Engagement recognizes university-community partnerships with CSU Community Engagement Scholarship Awards, and this year has given the College of Liberal Arts an Honorable Mention for the 12 nominations over the last two years, showcasing the important role that the liberal arts play in engaged scholarship and the land-grant mission.
