Academic staff honored for teaching, research, public service
For their outstanding work in leadership, public service, research and teaching, seven university professionals have been honored with the 2001 Academic Staff Excellence Awards.
The seven winners will be honored at a chancellor’s reception Wednesday, April 18, and recognized by the Academic Staff Assembly. The winners were nominated by colleagues and chosen by a special selection committee.
There are five award categories overall. Six awards carry $2,500 stipends; the Award for Excellence in Teaching carries a $5,000 stipend.
Steven Shelton
Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research
Shelton, a distinguished researcher in the Medical School Department of Psychiatry, currently supervises research programs at the Caribbean Primate Research Center in Puerto Rico as well as several UW–Madison laboratories.
Since joining the university in 1967, he has played a major role in the internationally acclaimed research program that focuses on understanding the relationship between brain activity and behavior, which has potential implications for individuals with anxiety, depression and other forms of psychopathology.
Shelton has produced publications at an extraordinary level, including co-authoring over 50 journal articles and book chapters and over 70 papers presented nationally and internationally.
He also provides invaluable research opportunities in his laboratory each semester to undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate and medical students. He has had a profound influence on the academic careers of the hundreds of students he has trained and many have gone on to research-related careers.
“He has enormous enthusiasm for and dedication to his work and upholds rigorous standards in both his interactions with students and his research activities,” says Mary Schneider, professor of psychology and kinesiology.
Karen Johnson Mathews
Wisconsin Alumni Association Award for Excellence in Leadership
The Wisconsin Union is designed to provide programs, services, student leadership training and out-of-classroom education to students and the greater campus community. As the Union’s assistant director of social education, Mathews has worked tirelessly throughout her 25 years at the university to fulfill these goals.
Mathews has provided counsel and support to hundreds of student volunteers and leaders and has overseen the student planning and implementation of thousands of educational programs for millions of attendees.
She also supervises over 15 members of the Wisconsin Union Program staff, a group of student personnel professionals that also advise student leaders. In her interaction with this staff, Mathews has shown that she truly cares about their personal growth and well-being, providing each with the benefit of her guidance while allowing them freedom to cultivate their own projects.
Mathews has participated in numerous projects and committees all over campus, including search and screen committees, the Mentor Program, the Chancellor’s Scholars Program and the advisory board for the student orientation program. She also played a central role in the planning and development of the Morgridge Center for Public Service.
James Burton
Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research
Burton has been manager and associate director of the Laboratory of Archaeological Chemistry in the Department of Anthropology since 1988.
Besides effectively overseeing the everyday operation of the laboratory, Burton is a dedicated and creative scientist consistently on the cutting edge of his field, archaeological chemistry. He has discovered the effectiveness of the element barium in the analysis of bone chemistry, has devised a number of new methods for cleaning contaminated bone samples and is currently developing a new method for analyzing prehistoric pottery that will likely become a standard archaeological procedure. Each discovery has revised prior understanding of these areas and have led to new archaeological insights.
Burton has also demonstrated his quality as a collaborator with students. He has been involved in a series of undergraduate research projects and has played a critical role in over ten doctoral theses. Outside of the lab, he volunteers himself as a mentor on campus and in the community.
The positive reputation of the lab is largely a result of Burton’s work. He was recently invited to China to lecture at their University of Science and Technology. He left a positive impression and the Chinese university proposed several collaborative projects on the basis of his visit.
Bill Steffenhagen
Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Service to the University
For the past 15 years, Steffenhagen has played several major leadership roles on campus in increasing shared governance of the university.
He served as Academic Staff Assembly representative 1989-93. He was also a member of the Academic Staff Assembly Personnel Policies and Procedures Committee 1988-94, serving as the committee’s chair for the last two years of his membership. During this time, the committee completed Academic Staff Policies and Procedures, a document that governs personnel policies for all UW–Madison academic staff today.
That work led Steffenhagen to be elected to the Academic Staff Executive Committee in 1994. He served a precedent-setting two consecutive terms as chair from 1996-98, during which time he wrote and developed legislation mandating committees on academic staff issues in all colleges and schools. The legislation was subsequently introduced and adopted.
Steffenhagen continued to make steps in increasing academic staff participation in government by chairing groups that developed a series of personnel titles that will make academic staff more visible and competitive in the work force.
“The motivation for his leadership is firmly rooted in a desire to advance the university and his colleagues,” says Wilt Sanders, chair of the Academic Staff Executive Committee.
George Stevenson
Robert Heideman Award for Excellence in Public Service
As associate director of the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Stevenson has made outstanding contributions to Wisconsin agriculture through his commitment to the Wisconsin Idea and the citizens of the state.
The center was established in 1989 to address emerging rural and agricultural issues in collaboration with an 11-member Citizen’s Advisory Council. Stevenson has been working closely and effectively with this council since the center’s inception to provide funding and expertise for research that can provide solutions to agricultural problems.
Stevenson has helped address the issue of declining farm numbers and farm career entry in Wisconsin. He worked with dairy producers to establish the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy Farmers, which provides individuals with the necessary training to start a successful farming operation.
He also worked with the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to establish the Farm Link program, which connects beginning and retiring farmers in a mentoring relationship.
Outside of the center, he is active in many local and national organizations, including the Urban Open Space Foundation, Magic Mill, the Sustainable Woods Cooperative and the executive council of the national Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society.
Nancy Westphal-Johnson
Wisconsin Alumni Association Award for Excellence in Leadership
The College of Letters and Science is extremely large, and so too are Westphal-Johnson’s responsibilities. But she seems to handle them with ease.
As the assistant dean and director of undergraduate education, she is responsible for the budgeting and administration of almost 1,200 teaching assistant appointments in more than forty separately budgeted departments and programs. She also works to make registration run smoothly by helping departments plan their budget for large influxes of freshman.
Westphal-Johnson is also in charge of the university’s general education program. She faces the daunting task of explaining the requirements and seeing that enough courses and seats are offered so that students can easily fulfill them.
If these duties are not difficult enough, she has also served in several university committees and groups, including the Professional Development and Recognition Committee, the Nominating Committee of the Academic Staff, the university’s team advising the State Department of Employment Relations in negotiations with the Teaching Assistants’ Association, the Staff Mentoring Program and she acts as chair of the Campus Child Care Committee.
James Ferris
Chancellor’s Hilldale Award for Excellence in Teaching
Ferris, an associate faculty associate in the Department of Communication Arts, is a phenomenal teacher, according to his students and colleagues.
He teaches a public speaking honors course as well as a course entitled “Disability and Communication,” which he proposed and developed himself. The innovative class is the first of its kind at UW–Madison and one of the first in the nation.
While his students describe him as “awesome,” “excellent,” “enthusiastic” and “the best,” his influence as a teacher goes even further beyond the ordinary. One visually impaired student turned down a full scholarship at Northwestern University to remain at UW–Madison because of the effect Ferris’s guidance and instruction had upon her. He not only passes on information effectively, but also develops a sense of camaraderie among his students, which further facilitates learning. “He cares deeply about his students and, in the course of his classes, gets them to care about each other as well as the subject,” says J. J. Murphy, chair of the Communication Arts Department.
Ferris is also a teacher of teachers. He provides training for the teaching assistants that conduct the department’s introductory public speaking courses, which are vital to the university’s general education program. Ferris has subsequently improved the teaching of these courses because the department’s least experienced instructors have benefited from his experienced tutelage.