Thrity Umrigar accepted the title of Distinguished University Professor during Fall Convocation in Severance Hall. Photo by Daniel Milner.
Thrity Umrigar, an acclaimed novelist who has gained an international audience while enriching the study of literature and the teaching of writing at Case Western Reserve, was named a Distinguished University Professor during Fall Convocation. This title is the highest distinction CWRU bestows on members of its faculty.
The author of eight works of fiction, a children’s book and a memoir, Umrigar previously won a Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature and a Lambda Literary Book Award, among other honors. When she first joined the Department of English as a visiting assistant professor in 2002, however, she was still on the threshold of her literary career.
A journalist by training, Umrigar had spent 15 years at The Akron Beacon-Journal, writing news stories, columns and Sunday magazine features. In 1999, she’d won a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, one of the most prestigious opportunities in her field. But along the way, she had begun preparing for a different sort of life. Umrigar completed a doctorate in English at Kent State University in 1997 and published her first novel, Bombay Time, two years later. Once she was offered the position at Case Western Reserve, she left the newspaper business and never looked back.
Umrigar quickly established herself in both academic and literary spheres. Appointed to the full-time English faculty in 2005, she rose after only six years to the rank of professor. In 2006, her second novel, The Space Between Us, became a bestseller in the United States and around the world, with editions published in 15 countries, including India, Turkey, Brazil, Poland, Indonesia and South Africa. Just this year, Umrigar revisited the characters from that novel in a sequel, The Secrets Between Us, which appeared with a blurb by the famed author Salman Rushdie.
Her first three books, including the memoir First Darling of the Morning, are set in her native India. But in several subsequent works, including If Today Be Sweet, The World We Found and The Story Hour, Umrigar has also dramatized the experiences of Indian immigrants in the United States. When an interviewer recently asked what she wished she had known about the writing life, she replied: “That people like me—female, brown, immigrant—could tell stories and didn’t have to ask someone’s permission in order to do so.” Everyone, she pointed out, “has a story to tell, but most people get distracted by other things in life and so their stories remain untold.”
While maintaining a rigorous writing schedule, going on book tours and appearing at literary festivals, Umrigar actively contributes to the educational and cultural mission of the university. She has developed undergraduate and graduate courses on such themes as the literature of 9/11 and the novels of Toni Morrison. She leads seminars for novice and advanced writers of fiction, memoir and creative nonfiction. In part through her involvement with the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, she helps bring renowned authors and journalists to campus, sometimes introducing them at public events or interviewing them onstage.
Umrigar also lends her voice and energies to literary organizations in Northeast Ohio and speaks frequently at schools and libraries. As Christopher Flint, professor and chair in the English department, observed in nominating her for the professorship, she is both a “global phenomenon” and “an exemplary citizen in service to our university and community.”
The Roe Green Proscenium Theater will be at the heart of Phase Two of the Maltz Performing Arts Center project. WRL Architects.
Exactly 120 years ago, two companies of student actors began presenting shows in Eldred Hall, the newly erected home of Adelbert College’s YMCA. Adelbert men performed in the Sock and Buskin Club, while the Curtain Players represented the College for Women. Productions ranged from student-written revues to popular comedies to Shakespeare plays. At the time, theater at American universities was almost exclusively an extracurricular activity.
In 1931, however, Barclay Leathem created Western Reserve University’s Department of Drama and Theater, one of the first academic theater programs in the country. Initially limited to graduate courses, it eventually extended its offerings to undergraduates. The department acquired a national reputation for its success in achieving its mission: imparting “a mastery of craft, breadth of vision and liveliness of thought to students as part of a world-class liberal arts education.” From then until now, however, theater education has never had a home on campus other than Eldred, whose current stage was built in 1938.
“Everything I do for educational theater, I do for students,” says philanthropist Roe Green. Photo by Daniel Milner.
Now, at long last, that’s about to change.
Thanks to a $10 million gift from Roe Green, a prominent advocate and supporter of cultural institutions and higher education, the university anticipates beginning construction next year of Phase Two of the Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center at The Temple–Tifereth Israel. And when this phase is completed, its defining feature will be the Roe Green Proscenium Theater.
“Roe Green’s gift will be instrumental in turning Phase Two into a superb performance venue and an exemplary teaching facility,” says theater department chair Jerrold Scott, the Katharine Bakeless Nason Professor of Theater. “We look forward to engaging student-artists and scholars in our work and welcoming the community to our productions.”
“Everything I do for educational theater, I do for students,” Green explained when her gift was announced this fall. “My hope is to provide Case Western Reserve students a home where they can grow and kindle their imaginations.”
As CEO of the Roe Green Foundation, Green has fostered educational and creative opportunities in the performing arts in Northeast Ohio and around the country. A longtime supporter of the Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Play House Master of Fine Arts Program in Acting, she hosts an annual dinner for the MFA students and was in the audience this fall when the Class of 2020 Graduate Ensemble presented Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull.
While the Green Theater will be the main attraction, Phase Two of the Maltz Center project will also include a black box theater, rehearsal studios and a costume and scene shop. The Department of Music will acquire instrument storage space and an ensemble warm-up room that will enhance the operations of Silver Hall and the Bud and Katie Koch Recital Hall, both of which opened in 2015. And Green’s gift may bring new opportunities to the Department of Dance as well.
“If scheduling allows, our students will have the privilege of dancing in a proscenium theater, thus broadening their performance experience,” says Professor Karen Potter, the department chair. Accustomed to the intimate studio theater at Mather Dance Center, they will learn to project “the aesthetic sensibility and feeling of a dance in a setting where the space between the stage and the audience is more palpable.”
Although it will be some time before the first opening night at the Green Theater, the thought of staging productions there is already, in Roe Green’s phrase, “kindling imaginations.” An artist’s drawing of the interior envisions a drama of war playing to a full house, with soldiers raising their weapons against a backdrop of clouds. Assistant Professor Kevin Inouye, the newest member of the theater faculty and a specialist in actor movement and stage combat, was so delighted by the scene that he posted to Facebook about it. “I love that the interior rendering shows swords on stage,” he wrote, “because c’mon, what’s theater without a little swordplay?”
Susan Griffith, former senior news and information specialist at CWRU, traced the history of Eldred Theater in an article available on the theater department’s website.
Timothy Beal, the Florence Harkness Professor of Religion and chair of the Department of Religious Studies, will be presented with the third annual Baker-Nord Center Award for Distinguished Scholarship in the Humanities early next year.
Beal’s contributions to the academic and popular understanding of religion are the subject of this tribute by Peter Knox, the Eric and Jane Nord Family Professor and director of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities.
Timothy Beal has enhanced our understanding of how biblical texts have been interpreted and reimagined over time and in different cultures. Photo by Mike Sands.
Tim Beal is one of the university’s most prolific humanities scholars. Over the past two decades, he has written nine books, edited five others and published 40-some academic articles. This impressive body of work has enhanced our understanding of how biblical texts have been interpreted and reimagined over time and in different cultures.
Tim is especially interested in modern American forms of religious expression. In 2002, three years after he joined our faculty, he set off on a road trip through rural America, visiting tourist attractions such as the World’s Largest Ten Commandments, a display of 5-foot-tall concrete letters on a mountain slope in North Carolina. His record of his travels, Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith, was selected as one of Publishers Weekly’s “Best Religion Books of 2005” and as an “Editor’s Choice” by The New York Times Book Review. Tim’s other books include The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book (2011), Religion in America: A Very Short Introduction (2008) and Religion and Its Monsters (2001).
He is editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and the Arts, which was named by Library Journal as the best print reference in the humanities for 2015. This fall, Tim published The Book of Revelation: A Biography, which he wrote with the support of a Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Among contemporary biblical scholars, Tim led the way in applying insights from critical theory and gender studies to his field. In recent years, he has embraced computer programming as a source of powerful new approaches to analyzing ancient texts and translations.
Here at Case Western Reserve, Tim has played a vital role in raising the profile of the humanities. As director of the Baker-Nord Center from 2004 to 2008, he fostered interdisciplinary inquiry among members of our faculty and brought renowned visiting scholars to campus for public lectures. In my own work as the center’s director, I have been deeply inspired by his example.
Tim reaches a broad audience not only through his books, but also through essays for media outlets such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post. An outstanding teacher and generous colleague, he reflects the highest standards in the humanities at our university.
Timothy Beal will accept his award and deliver a public lecture, “Brooding Over the Face of the Deep: Language, Otherness and Technologies of Translation,” on Feb. 6, 2019, at the Tinkham Veale University Center.
Walter Lambrecht’s research has yielded valuable insights into the materials underlying such innovations as LEDs, semiconductors and solar cells. Photo by Mike Sands.
As physics professor Walter Lambrecht puts it, some people believe that his discipline is all about going smaller. If physicists could just identify the tiniest components of matter—cataloging all the elementary particles in the universe, or verifying the existence of superstrings—their work would be done.
As a leading figure in the field known as condensed matter physics, however, Lambrecht is more interested in the complexity that arises from the collective behavior of those tiny particles. For the past three decades, he has investigated how matter forms from vast quantities of interacting electrons and atomic nuclei, and the physical properties that arise from those interactions. Through collaborations at Case Western Reserve and around the globe, he has gained valuable insights into the materials underlying such innovations as LEDs, semiconductors and solar cells.
Early this spring, in recognition of his exceptional achievements, Lambrecht received Case Western Reserve’s Faculty Distinguished Research Award. Established in 2013, the award was presented this year to four faculty members across the university who have enhanced CWRU’s reputation.
Lambrecht employs a variety of tools in his research, including software algorithms he helped write to model the optical, electrical and magnetic properties of solid materials. He is particularly interested in the atomic-scale defects that lend semiconductors like silicon their most useful characteristics. Among his many innovations, Lambrecht was one of the first physicists to explore nitrides, whose unique optical capabilities enable the LEDs used in lightbulbs and Blu-ray players. He was also an early investigator of the exotic (and exotically named) substances known as halide perovskites, which promise to boost the efficiency of solar cells while making them cheaper and easier to manufacture.
“Walter has made important contributions to our understanding of many of the materials that have transformed our technologies, and has presciently worked on many others that promise to lead to the next transformative technologies,” wrote Professor Kathleen Kash, chair of the Department of Physics, in nominating Lambrecht for the award.
A native of Belgium, Lambrecht came to Case Western Reserve as a senior research associate in 1987 and accepted a faculty position in 1996. For the past 25 years, he has received continuous federal funding from defense agencies, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy.
A sought-after collaborator on large-scale grants, Lambrecht is currently working with Kash on one NSF project, and with colleagues at The Ohio State University on another, to develop next-generation semiconductors. Previously, he was principal investigator on an NSF Materials World Network grant with researchers in New Zealand.
Because of his eminence in the physics community, experimentalists often ask Lambrecht to explain puzzling findings from their labs: materials whose spectra resist interpretation, or whose magnetic properties seem not to make sense. Sometimes the simulations generated by his computer models match up with the experimental data; sometimes they don’t. Either way, he enjoys the continuous feedback between theory and experiment, and he doesn’t mind when discrepancies arise. Not only do they help him refine the theories that power his models; they also keep things interesting.
“If we could predict everything perfectly,” he says, “it would be kind of boring.”
Ben Vinson III, who became CWRU’s provost and executive vice president in summer 2018, is the eighth Hiram C. Haydn Professor of History. Photo by Matthew Lester.
In 1888, Flora Stone Mather made her first major gift to Western Reserve University: $50,000 to endow a professorship in history. At her direction, the professorship was named for Hiram C. Haydn, who had just assumed his duties as the university’s fifth president. Formerly, Haydn had been the Mathers’ family pastor at Cleveland’s Old Stone Church.
Flora Stone Mather went on to become a loyal donor to the university, and especially to its College for Women, which would eventually bear her name. She funded the construction of Haydn Hall and Guilford House, for example, where the departments of modern languages and literatures, English and music now reside. The Haydn Professorship may be a less visible part of her legacy. Yet it has enhanced the university’s mission and contributed to its scholarly reputation.
This summer, 130 years after Mather’s inaugural gift, the college selected Ben Vinson III, Case Western Reserve’s new provost and executive vice president, as the eighth Haydn Professor. Vinson came to CWRU from The George Washington University, where he served as dean of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Previously, he was a faculty member and administrator at Johns Hopkins University, Penn State and Dartmouth College.
An expert on Latin America, Vinson has done pioneering work on the racial dimensions of Mexican history, in part by illuminating the experiences of free and enslaved Africans. His latest book, Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico, was published this year by Cambridge University Press.
Vinson’s appointment, says Dean Cyrus Taylor, provides an occasion to reflect on the importance of endowed chairs to an institution like Case Western Reserve.
“These professorships ensure that academic work of the highest caliber will continue in perpetuity in a designated field of study, and they provide a university with a means of attracting and honoring exceptional faculty members in that field,” Taylor explains. “A great university will often celebrate its history of outstanding contributions to a discipline by recalling the series of illustrious figures appointed to an endowed chair.”
Until now, only one other Haydn Professor has held a high-profile administrative position. Elbert Jay Benton, appointed to the chair in 1909, became the first dean of the graduate school at Western Reserve University in 1925. Still, he did not give up teaching, or the professorship, until 1941, when he retired from the faculty and became director of the Western Reserve Historical Society. Benton’s publications included a three-volume cultural history of Cleveland; but like most of the chair holders who came before and after him, he pursued a wide range of interests, devoting one of his early books to the Spanish-American War.
Flora Stone Mather’s extraordinary record of generosity to the university began with her establishment of the Haydn Professorship, the institution’s first endowed chair in history. Portrait by Ellen Emmet Rand, 1907; Image 00335, CWRU Archives.
The Haydn Professors have achieved distinction in many historical fields. Marion Siney (1977–83) was an eminent diplomatic historian of World War I. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the American Council of Learned Societies, she published a definitive account of the Allied blockade of Germany from 1914 to 1918. Other women had taught history at Mather College, but she was the first woman appointed to the university’s history faculty.
For scholars such as Siney and David Van Tassel (1993–98), the Haydn Professorship was the capstone to a long and distinguished academic career. After establishing his reputation in American social and intellectual history, Van Tassel applied his skills to an emerging field: the historical and interdisciplinary study of aging. A winner of the Charles Frankel Prize from the National Endowment for the Humanities, he was a co-founder of the university’s Center on Aging and Health, the founding editor of The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History and the initiator of the National History Day competition, all of which continue to flourish.
David Hammack (1998–2018), who retired from the Haydn chair last spring, is a leading scholar of the nonprofit sector, focusing especially on the historical and contemporary role of philanthropic foundations in the United States and around the world. A former John Simon Guggenheim Fellow and past president of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, Hammack received the association’s 2012 award for distinguished achievement. Applying his expertise beyond academia, he has advised several local and national nonprofit organizations and contributed to discussions about the governing of civil society institutions in the European Union.
Speaking as a scholar of philanthropy, Hammack notes that endowed chairs like the Haydn Professorship “allow a university to make serious, continuing commitments both to particular fields and to general academic excellence. Income from a carefully invested endowment provides stability to an institution’s portfolio of resources. That’s critical in the face of unexpected financial and economic crises and unpredictable government decisions.”
To history department chair Kenneth Ledford, Vinson’s appointment to the Haydn chair couldn’t be more welcome. “Ben’s arrival strengthens our profile in Latin American history, one field targeted for growth in the department’s strategic plan,” Ledford says. “In addition, we look forward to having him participate fully in the life of the department. As one of our history colleagues, he will have a vote in faculty searches and in policy decisions involving our undergraduate and graduate programs, and we envision him teaching an occasional undergraduate course as his time permits.”
In accepting the professorship, Vinson remarked: “I am absolutely delighted and honored to be named to such a distinguished position at the university, one that is deeply enmeshed in the history and legacy of our revered institution. The symbolism of assuming this professorship is not lost upon me, the tremendous pedigree of previous chair holders resonates profoundly, and I relish the opportunity of being integrated into the university community in this distinct and special way.”
The Davee Foundation, a major benefactor of higher education, culture and the arts, health care and social causes, has made a $1 million endowment gift to Case Western Reserve to fund scholarships for undergraduate history majors. The endowment will be named for Adeline Barry Davee (FSM ’31, GRS ’32), who established the foundation with her husband, Ken Davee, in 1964.
Mrs. Davee, who enjoyed a successful career as a marketing executive, was an English major at Flora Stone Mather College and went on to earn a master’s degree, also in English, from the graduate school of Western Reserve University. She completed an undergraduate minor in history as well and later worked as an assistant to Professor Robert C. Binkley, who was then chair of the history department, helping him raise money for scholarships. A year after her death in 1987, the foundation honored her memory by endowing the Adeline Barry Davee Distinguished Professorship of History at CWRU, a post held since 2006 by Professor Ted Steinberg.
The new scholarship will be awarded to entering students who plan to major in history or to current students who have declared the major. The recipients, to be known as Davee Scholars, will be eligible for support for tuition, room and board, books and other expenses for up to five years. During the selection process, some preference will be given to candidates from Chicago, the foundation’s home.
Associate Professor Kenneth Ledford, chair of the history department and co-director of the Max Kade Center for German Studies, notes that the scholarship will help attract history-minded students to the university and encourage those who are already enrolled to consider pursuing history as a major. “Now, more than ever,” Ledford says, “it is vital that CWRU produce students whose historical understanding prepares them to distinguish wisdom from cant, truth from lies.”
“The Davee Foundation is honored to create this scholarship in memory of Adeline Barry Davee,” says James W. Dugdale Jr., the foundation’s president. “The Davees were always supporters of education, and this scholarship will allow students who might not have been able to attend college otherwise to get a quality education.”
From left: Cheryl Toman, chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, encouraged her colleagues, Peggy Fitzgerald and Takao Hagiwara, to apply for a Japan Foundation grant. Photo by Mike Sands.
The Japan Foundation has awarded $150,000 to the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures to create a new tenure-track faculty position in Japanese. The grant will cover three years of salary and research costs for an assistant professor, beginning in Fall 2019.
The authors of the department’s successful proposal were Associate Professor Takao Hagiwara, section head of the Japanese Studies Program, and Lecturer Peggy Fitzgerald.
The competition for Japan Foundation support is intense, notes the department chair, Professor Cheryl Toman. Yet the Japanese Studies Program ranked first among this year’s applicants.
The grant, which will also fund lectures by visiting scholars, will enable the department to recruit top candidates to its second-largest program, Toman says. Of the 10 languages the department offers, only Spanish attracts more students than Japanese does.
Established by the Japanese government in 1972, the Japan Foundation supports artistic, cultural and scholarly exchanges as well as Japanese-language education.
From left: Toby Maloney (GRS ’73), Distinguished Graduate Alumnus; Neil Ursic (CWR ’08), Distinguished Young Alumnus; Sally Reisacher Petro (WRC ’82, SAS ’84, GRS ’90, SAS ’90) and Margaret Clossey (FSM ’68), Distinguished Service Alumnae; Michael Lubin (CIT ’68), Distinguished Undergraduate Alumnus; Tom Slavin, recipient of the Dean’s Medal for Exceptional Commitment; and Dean Cyrus Taylor. Photo by Robert Wetzler.
The College of Arts and Sciences recognized five distinguished alumni at a ceremony at the Frank N. and Jocelyne K. Linsalata Alumni Center this fall. The event was part of Homecoming and Reunion Weekend. Profiles of the award winners appeared in the Spring/Summer 2018 issue of art/sci.
Dean Cyrus Taylor also took the occasion to present the Dean’s Medal for Exceptional Commitment to Tom Slavin, a longtime volunteer and philanthropic supporter of the college.
“Tom has been a pivotal figure in transforming The Temple–Tifereth Israel into a state-of-the art performing arts center and landmark of the West Campus expansion,” Taylor said. “Thousands of people each year now enjoy events at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, and that would not have happened without Tom Slavin.”
To submit nominations for the 2019 Alumni Awards, please visit artsci.cwru.edu/development/alumni-awards. Next year’s awards will be presented during Homecoming and Reunion Weekend, Oct. 10–13, 2019.
The Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Play House Master of Fine Arts Program in Acting was named one of the world’s 25 best graduate theater programs by The Hollywood Reporter, which compiles an annual list in consultation with theater educators, industry professionals and drama school alumni.
“It is a major accomplishment to be among the top 25 schools out of thousands of candidates,” said Donald Carrier, interim program director and adjunct associate professor in CWRU’s Department of Theater, when the rankings were published in May. “The usefulness of this recognition cannot be overstated, since the list is instrumental in helping young artists choose a training institution.”
Even before The Hollywood Reporter brought it greater prominence, the CWRU/CPH MFA Program was highly competitive; in a typical year, it accepts eight students out of 800 applicants. These students learn their craft in courses taught by theater professionals from the university and CPH, and in master classes and workshops led by internationally renowned guest artists. They acquire performance experience at the Allen Theatre complex in Cleveland’s Playhouse Square, appearing both in Graduate Ensemble and in CPH productions. Once they graduate, they appear before talent scouts and agents at a New York City showcase as members of Actors’ Equity Association.
“The MFA program’s recognition by The Hollywood Reporter is a credit to the talent and professionalism of our alumni and students for more than two decades,” said Jerrold Scott, the Katharine Bakeless Nason Professor of Theater and chair of the theater department. “It also speaks to the dedication of our faculty and leadership at CWRU and CPH, and especially to the visionary drive of the late Ron Wilson. I know he would be enormously gratified to see the program he ran for so long honored in this way.”
Elizabeth Bolman, the Elsie B. Smith Chair in the Liberal Arts and chair of the Department of Art History and Art, has been named a senior fellow at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C. Senior fellows advise the institution’s director on all aspects of its influential research program in Byzantine studies.
Mary Erdmans, professor in the Department of Sociology, received a 2018–19 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Grant.
Elina Gertsman, professor in the Department of Art History and Art, is the co-author (with Barbara H. Rosenwein) of The Middle Ages in 50 Objects, which features European, Byzantine and Islamic works from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s medieval collections. Gertsman is also a co-recipient (with Vincent Debiais) of a grant from the French-American Cultural Exchange Foundation for a project exploring abstraction in medieval and early modern art.
Elizabeth Meckes (CWR ’01, GRS ’02) and Mark Meckes (CWR ’99, GRS ’03), professors in the Department of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics, are the authors of Linear Algebra, part of the Cambridge Mathematical Textbooks series.
Cheryl Toman, professor and chair in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, has produced an English translation of Awu’s Story, a novel by the Gabonese writer Justine Mintsa, for the University of Nebraska Press’ French Voices Series. Toman, who also directs the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, has devoted much of her recent scholarship to the study of women writers in Gabon.
Joy Bostic, associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies and founding director of the African and African American Studies minor, received the 2018 Faculty Diversity Award from the Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity.
Carlos Crespo-Hernández, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, received the 2018 Morton L. Mandel Award for Outstanding Chemistry Faculty.
Sarah Gridley, associate professor in the Department of English, won the Poetry Society of America’s 2018 Cecil Hemley Memorial Award for her poem “The Depletions.”
Elliot Posner, associate professor in the Department of Political Science, is the author (with Abraham Newman) of Voluntary Disruptions: Soft Law, Finance and Power.
Noelle Giuffrida, assistant professor in the Department of Art History and Art, is the author of Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese Art Collecting in Postwar America.
Lisa Nielson, director of the Flora Stone Mather Center for Women, adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Music and Anisfield-Wolf SAGES Fellow, received the 2018 Senior Leadership Award from the Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity.
Valerie Haywood, senior instructor in the Department of Biology, was elected president of the Ohio regional network for Project Kaleidoscope, a national organization that advocates strategies to improve undergraduate STEM education.
Diana Driscoll, instructor and lab director in the Department of Physics, received the 2018 Ohio Project Kaleidoscope STEM Educator Award.
Awards for undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring announced
Last spring, two faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences received the university’s Carl F. Wittke Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching:
In addition, Calandruccio was a recipient of the J. Bruce Jackson, MD, Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Mentoring. She is the first person ever to win the Wittke and Jackson awards concurrently.
Two other awards—one from SAGES, the university’s undergraduate seminar program, and one from the Department of English—were also presented last spring.
Solomon Oliver Jr. (GRS ’74, political science) received the 2018 Robert J. Kutak Award from the American Bar Association at its annual meeting in August. The award recognizes “significant contributions to the collaboration of the legal academy, the bench and the bar.” Oliver served as chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio from 2010 to 2017.
Mark D. Agrast (WRC ‘78) will receive a 2019 Stonewall Award from the American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. The award recognizes “lawyers who have considerably advanced lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in the legal profession and successfully championed LGBT legal causes.” This fall, Agrast received the CWRU Pride Outstanding Alumni Award.
Teresa Head-Gordon (CIT ’83), the Chancellor’s Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, was elected to the 2018 class of American Chemical Society Fellows.
Catherine Kilbane (WRC ’84, LAW ’87) was appointed to the board of directors of Interface, Inc., a global commercial flooring company.
Judy Weisseg (WRC ’85, MGMT ’90) has been named vice president for human resources at HarbisonWalker International.
Matthew A. Kosior (CWR ’89, MGMT ’04) was named president of American Colors, Inc. Kosior, who earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry, joined the firm as a lab chemist in 1989.
John Garrity (GRS ’92, ’98, medical anthropology) was named executive director of the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Portage County, Ohio.
M. Norman Oliver (GRS ’92, anthropology; MED ’94), a professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, has been named Virginia’s state health commissioner.
Yijun Deng (GRS ’00, chemistry) was appointed as vice president of drug discovery at Asieris Pharmaceuticals, a China-based biotech company that specializes in developing cancer drugs.
Todd Herman (GRS ‘02, art history) has been named president and CEO of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C.
Lori Ann Terjesen (GRS ’11, art history and museum studies) has been named director of education at the National Women’s History Museum in Alexandria, Va.
Dana Cowen (GRS ’14, art history) has been named the inaugural Sheldon Peck Curator for European and American Art before 1950 at the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sarah Cuneo (GRS ’18) performed the world premiere of Eulalia: A Bedtime Story, presented by Pretty Bird Theater Company, during the New York International Fringe Festival this fall. Cuneo wrote this one-woman play as a thesis project while completing the Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Play House MFA Program in Acting.
School and Degree Abbreviations
CIT Case Institute of Technology
CWR Undergraduates, 1989 and after
GRS School of Graduate Studies
LAW School of Law
MED School of Medicine
MGMT Weatherhead School of Management
WRC Western Reserve College
The notes in this section are compiled from news releases, other publications and messages from alumni like you. We want to hear about milestones in your life. Please send your updates, with your graduation year, to artsci@cwru.edu.