Faculty and staff news
Richard Becker, associate professor of music, had his 1991 Town Hall Recital performance of “Impromptu” and studio recording of “Three Dances” in Camp Concert Hall, Booker Hall of Music (2000) included on David Chaitkin: Poems of Love and Other Works, an Albany Records CD, which was released Nov. 1.
Jim Gwin, collections librarian, was elected to membership in Omicron Delta Kappa, the national leadership honorary society. He was formally inducted Nov. 6 at a ceremony on campus.
Brian Henry, associate professor of English and creative writing, received the Carole Weinstein Poetry Award at the annual Library of Virginia awards ceremony. The $10,000 award is given to a poet with strong ties to Virginia who has made strong contributions to poetry.
Douglas Hicks, associate professor of leadership and religion and director of the Center for Civic Engagement, and Jonathan Wight, associate professor of economics and international studies, received the Richmond Ambassador Award from the Richmond City Council during the council’s Nov. 13 meeting. On Oct. 17, Hicks and Wight won the Templeton Foundation’s In Character Prize for the year’s best journalism about human virtue and its importance in the life of American society. Their guest opinion column, “Disaster Relief: What Would Adam Smith Do?” was originally published in the Jan. 18, 2005, Christian Science Monitor. The essay encouraged compassion for action to help people in suffering.
Amy L. Howard, acting director of the Center for Civic Engagement, received national recognition when her dissertation, “More than Shelter: Community, Identity, and Spatial Politics in San Francisco Public Housing, 1938–2000,” was selected by the Urban History Association as the best dissertation completed in 2005 in the field. Her work also was recognized as one of the best dissertations of 2005 by the American Studies Association. In addition, her study of public housing received the Distinguished Dissertation in Humanities Award from the College of William and Mary. Upon completing her Ph.D. at William and Mary, Howard received the Thatcher Prize for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Study. In addition to directing the Center for Civic Engagement this academic year, she teaches a fall semester course, The Urban Crisis in America, and serves as faculty advisor to the Civic Engagement House, a living-learning community.
Rick Mayes, assistant professor of political science, has published Medicare Prospective Payment and the Shaping of U.S. Health Care with Dr. Robert Berenson, M.D. The book finds that although managed care was an important agent of change in the 1990s, the private sector has not been the major health care innovator in the United States.
Catherine Orr, events and publications coordinator in the Office of International Education, had her essay about Sicily published in a travel book, Italy from a Backpack. The book is being sold by Barnes and Noble and Borders bookstores.
Homer Rudolf, music history professor from 1976–2000, has been investigating his Russian-German genealogy. In addition to serving terms on the board of the Germans from Russia Heritage Society and on the editorial board of the society’s journal, Heritage Review, he has researched, written, co-produced or contributed to a number of publications. Among them are The Glückstalers in New Russia and North America: A Bicentennial Collection of History, Genealogy & Folklore, A Soulful Sound: Music of the Germans from Russia and “The 1921–23 Famine in Ukraine and the North Dakota Citizen’s Relief Association for the Needy in Russia” in Heritage Review.