Below are the names of the faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences who were recently tenured and/or promoted. The work of these faculty members is testimony to the very high standards set in this College. Their records of scholarly and creative accomplishments, their success as teachers, and their contributions to their professions, the University, the College, and the community are impressive indeed.
The College of Arts and Sciences Full Professor Lecture Series was established in fall 2007 to give faculty members newly promoted to the rank of “full” Professor the opportunity to share with the university community a single piece of their research or an overview of their research with the goal of communicating a sense of the excitement of the intellectual problems that have energized their careers. This tradition will continue in the coming year and all are invited to attend.
Promotion to Professor
Promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure
Promotion to Senior Lecturer
Promotion to Research Associate Professor
New Department Chairs for the academic year 2016-17
New Program Directors for academic year 2016-17
Faculty Research Support Awards – Spring 2016
Interdisciplinary Experiential Engagement Funds – Spring 2016
Designed to increase the range of interdisciplinary courses providing "real-world” learning experiences:
Dean’s Lecture Awards for 2016-2017
The following professors were chosen as recipients of the Dean’s Lecture Award for the upcoming academic year:
This is the judgment of the Dean’s Lecture Award Committee. The committee members were impressed by how well the accomplishments of both professors fit the requirements of the award: excellence in scholarship combined with the ability to translate it into stimulating teaching. Each recipient of the Dean’s Lecture Award will receive $1,000 in research support. Exact dates and lecture topics for each professor will be announced in the fall.
APLE Summer Stipend Recipients
The 2016 APLE Summer recipients were recently chosen and will be awarded funding from the Dean’s office to work on summer research projects. This year’s recipients are Sarang Murthy and Pearl Weggler. APLE Summer Stipends provide a summer salary of $3,000 for undergraduate students. Typically, two stipends are awarded each year.
The 2016 Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award
Kelley Di Dio, Kat Scollins, and Sarah Turner are the recipients of the 2016 Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award. Four awards are given annually (Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Full Professor) and our colleagues took home three! What fantastic scholar-teachers!!!
Professor Mark Usher received a Summer Stipends award from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). All Summer Stipends applications are evaluated by peer review panels and by the National Council on the Humanities. This year the NEH received over eight hundred applications; only ten percent were funded. This competitive process makes Professor Usher’s award an important honor for his project.
Faculty News
Professor Nancy Welch’s co-edited collection Composition in the Age of Austerity was published by Utah State University Press in March. In mid-May the Rhetoric Society of America chapter at the University of California-Irvine will hold a one-day symposium, titled “Unruly Rhetorics,” on her work. Her keynote for the symposium is titled “Who’s Afraid of Bread and Roses? Lessons from the Lawrence Strike for Today’s Civility Wars."
Senior Lecturer Sarah E. Turner won a Kroepsch-Maurice award for Excellence in Teaching in May, bringing the English Department's total of Kroepsch-Maurice winners to eleven—that's nearly one-quarter of the department’s faculty. Dr. Turner teaches English 057, Race and Ethnicity in Literary Studies, as well as courses on African-American women writers, with an emphasis on the works of Toni Morrison. She is the co-editor, with UVM professor Sarah Nilsen, of The Colorblind Screen: Television in Post-Racial America (NYU Press, 2014), as well as essays on race in film and television.
Professor Major Jackson, Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor of English, has been selected as a University of Vermont Distinguished Professor. The University Distinguished Professor Award, founded in 2009 by Provost John M. Hughes, is the highest academic honor the University of Vermont can bestow upon a member of the faculty. The ten holders of this title are recognized not only for having achieved international eminence in their respective fields of study but also for the truly transformative nature of their contributions to the advancement of knowledge. Professor Jackson is an award-winning poet whose books include Roll Deep (W.W. Norton, 2015), Holding Company (W.W. Norton, 2010), Hoops (W.W. Norton, 2006), and Leaving Saturn: Poems (University of Georgia Press, 2002). Recent publications by Professor Jackson include his essay Where Scars Reside, published in Guernica Magazine, and his poem Urban Renewal: A Collaboration with Painter Jill Moser, inThe Southampton Review.
Associate Professor Todd McGowan has been named a winner of the Dean's Lecture Award, given by the College of Arts and Sciences to faculty who meet the challenge of being both excellent teachers and highly respected professionals in their own disciplines. Professor McGowan is an internationally recognized scholar in film studies and psychoanalytic cultural criticism, as well as an inspiring teacher. He is the author of eleven books and over 50 peer-reviewed articles on such subjects as Spike Lee, David Lynch, psychoanalysis and politics, Lacanian film theory, and cinematic time.
Lecturer Stephen Cramer writes: “I’m thrilled to announce that my fifth book of poetry, entitled Bone Music, just won the Louise Bogan Award. The book, selected by Kimiko Hahn, [was] published by Trio House Press in the spring of 2016. Also, I just found out that a translation project that my friend Alejandro Merizalde and I have been working on (for 12-plus years off and on!) has just found a home. It's a selection of the work of Jaime Sabines, an excellent writer from Mexico. ‘Sabines' poetry is personal, intense and, in my opinion, one of the most important in Latin America and in the Spanish language,’ says Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz. A Jar of Moon Air: Selected Poems of Jaime Sabines brings one of the greatest Spanish voices to a wider public. The most extensive collection of Sabines yet to be published in English, this book contains poems from each of the poet's collections, split up into four sections based on theme. A Jar of Moon Air delivers a vital sampling of a relatively unexplored atmosphere right to our doorsteps, so that we can savor its rare and dazzling essence with every turn of the page.”
Recent and forthcoming faculty books:
Faculty
Cheryl Morse was awarded one of two CUPS New Outstanding SL Faculty Awards. Pictured at the event, she is joined (from left to right) by CALS Dean Tom Vogelmann, CAS Dean Bill Falls, UVM Extension Dean Doug Lantagne, and Associate Provost Brian Reed. She also received an inaugural award from the James M. Jeffords Fund Grant Program for Policy Studies, to work on "Global Returnees: Transnational Return Migrants’ Present and Potential Impacts on Vermont’s Socio-economic Geographies."
Student Awards and Scholarships
Assistant Professor of Russian Kathleen Scollins was one of four faculty members at the University of Vermont to receive this year’s Kroepsch-Maurice Award for Excellence in Teaching.
In November 2015, Wolfgang Mieder was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bucharest – his second such honorary doctorate within one year! This event is commemorated in the 60-page booklet “Doctor Honoris Causa“ – Wolfgang Mieder (Bucuresti: Tipografia Universitatii din Bucuresti), which contains Daniela Ionescu’s Laudatio and also the speech delivered by Professor Mieder on Thanksgiving Day of 2015, both of which show how intimately his scholarly involvement with Rumanian paremiology also carried over into a correspondence with and concern for the people in that country.
On March 15, 2016, Stefan Koch gave this year’s Harry H. Kahn Memorial Lecture on "From Vienna to Vermont: The Life and Music of Richard Stöhr (1874-1967)." Present in the audience was the composer’s daughter, Hedi Ballantyne, a 1950 graduate of the University of Vermont and also someone whom Stefan Koch has interviewed regarding her childhood memories, participation in the 1939 “Kindertransport” from Vienna, and experiences in wartime England.
The following majors and/or minors in German and Russian have been selected for Fulbright Scholarships in 2016-17: Duncan Donnay (Austria), Sammie Ibrahim (Kazakhstan), Jacob Pelland (Austria), Zhenya Rock (Russia), and Charlie DanSheffy (Germany).
This year’s Outstanding Seniors were Niklas Gick (German) and Tatiana Rumsey (Russian).
Julia Moreno (German major, 2015) has been accepted into the Ph.D. Program in Linguistics at the University of Glasgow. Her dissertation topic will involve a study of clicks (similar to the ones that occur in the Bantu languages of South Africa) in interactions of preschool-aged, middle school-aged, and high school-aged Standard Scottish English speakers.
Faculty Publications
The following faculty members from German and Russian have published these books, articles, and conference proceedings not already included on pages 6-7 of our Fall 2015 Newsletter, as listed in the February of 2016 edition of CAS eNews :
Professor Dennis Mahoney:
Professor Kevin McKenna:
Professor Wolfgang Mieder:
Professor Helga Schreckenberger:
Associate Professor Felicia Kornbluh was featured in an episode of the NPR (national) show and podcast, "Back Story, with the American History Guys," in an episode on unemployment that aired on April 26th. She also did a long interview in the VPR studio on the Supreme Court case "King v. Smith," of 1968, in which the justices ruled that a woman receiving welfare benefits could continue to do so even if she had sex with a man. Technically, what the case did was overturn the "man-in-the-house" laws that many states, such as George Wallace's Alabama (from which King v. Smith came), passed in the wake of the civil rights movement. More expansively, the case was the first at which the Court considered major constitutional and statutory questions regarding Title IV-A of the Social Security Act of 1935, the law that provided economic benefits to low-income mothers and children.
The link to the whole show is here: http://backstoryradio.org/shows/hard-times/
The link to her segment is here: https://soundcloud.com/backstory/dating-danger-welfare-and-women
Dr. Kornbluh also had a letter published in the Sunday New York Times book review on February 14th. It was in reference to an illustration that had run in the prior week, which represented American decline as a man in a superman cape leaning on a crutch. Her letter states: “The illustration that accompanied the reviews of books on American economic decline on the cover of the Book Review serves as an excellent case in point for students in my course on sex, gender and disability. The association of fears of national decline with physical impairment and enfeebled masculinity can be traced over at least 100 years — from post-World War?I Europe to Donald Trump’s book Crippled America. Your illustrator underlined the power of this metaphor, if not also the danger it poses to the understanding of people with physical impairments.”
Faculty Publications
The most recent book by Professor of French Joseph Acquisto, Proust, Music, and Meaning: Theory and Practice of Listening in the Recherche, has been accepted for publication and will appear with Palgrave Macmillan in early 2017.
Professor of Spanish Tina Escaja published her book Manual Destructivista / Destructivist Manual with Artepoética Press in May. In March and April, she had collaborative exhibitions in Spain (“Contidos desbordados”) and Burlington (“CONTEXERE”), participated in two poetry readings in Burlington as well as the Habana International Book Festival, and was the main organizer of the 36th International Congress of ALDEEU (Spanish Professionals in America) in New York in June.
Associate Professor of Italian Paolo Pucci was keynote speaker at an alumni reunion at Rutgers University, presenting on widows in Italian literary culture of the Renaissance. An article on the contribution of prostitutes to political propaganda against the Spanish oppressor in sixteenth-century Siena as they are represented in the short stories of Sienese author Pietro Fortini is forthcoming in Rivista di Letteratura Italiana.
UVM Theatre announces its 2016/2017 season:
Stupid F#*cking Bird
By Aaron Posner
Directed by Craig Wells
Performance dates – Sept. 29 thru Oct. 1 & Oct. 6 thru Oct. 8 at 7:30PM
Oct. 1 & Oct. 9 at 2PM
In this irreverent, contemporary and very funny remix of The Seagull, an aspiring young director rampages against the art created by his mother’s generation, a nubile young actress wrestles with an aging Hollywood star for the affections of a renowned novelist, and everyone discovers just how disappointing love, art, and growing up can be. This timeless tale of unrequited love, missed opportunities, and misplaced dreams uses music, mad humor, and meta-theatricality to turn Chekhov’s classic play inside out.
Dracula
Adapted by Steven Dietz from the novel by Bram Stoker
Directed by Sarah Carleton
Performance dates – Nov. 3 thru Nov. 5 & Nov. 10 thru Nov. 12 at 7:30PM
Nov. 5 and Nov. 13 at 2PM.
“A fear once rooted in your mind, is yours forever.” Filled with the suspense and seduction of Bram Stoker’s timeless novel, this Dracula will keep you riveted as the Count comes to London to fulfill his hunger. Will his victims be able to resist the terror and desire and save themselves from a hideous fate? Sensual and spellbinding, Dracula is a theatrical experience you don’t want to miss!
Spring Awakening
Book and Lyrics by Steven Sater, Music by Duncan Sheik
Based on the play by Frank Wedeking
Directed by Gregory Ramos
Performance dates – Feb. 23 thru Feb. 25 and Mar. 2 thru Mar. 4 at 7:30PM
Feb. 25 and Mar. 5 at 2PM.
Winner of eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Spring Awakening follows the unforgettable journey of a group of students in late nineteenth-century Germany as they move from adolescence into adulthood, learning what it means to experience love and loss. With an electrifying score, Spring Awakening is a modern masterpiece that is an exhilarating fusion of morality, sexuality, and rock and roll.