College Of Education Honors Their Own

College of Education "outstanding" award honorees include, from left: Beverly Irby, grantmanship; Marsha Harman, teaching; and Rosanne Keathley, service. Not pictured is David Marcus, outstanding research.

Four professors from the College of Education were honored for their ‘outstanding’ work at a luncheon Tuesday in the Lowman Student Center Ballroom.

Beverly Irby, David Marcus, Rosanne Keathley and Marsha Harman were all selected by their peers as recipients at this year’s ceremony, which will become an annual event for the college.

“It is always a pleasure to honor deserving professionals who inspire us to be the best we can be,” said College of Education dean Genevieve Brown. “And, of course, we hope that they will get pleasure in being recognized for their accomplishments by their peers.”

Irby, chair and professor of educational leadership and counseling department, was honored for “outstanding grantmanship.”

“Dr. Irby should be recognized for the amounts of money she has brought to this college through the years,” said Laverne Warner, chair of the college awards committee, reading what one peer wrote in a nomination form. “Her grants have brought credibility to our department and university.”

Irby said she is “very honored” to have been selected for the award.

“I hope that I can be helpful to others as they work on grants,” she said. “Grants do so much good for our students, they help us build our research and they help us to contribute to our field from a knowledge that we gain in our grant.”

David Marcus, professor of psychology, was honored for “outstanding research.”

“Over the past decade, Dr. Marcus has produced a diverse body of research at a very consistent and productive pace,” one colleague said in a nomination form. “Some of this research has appeared in the most competitive journals in clinical and forensic psychology. Perhaps most importantly, this research often involves graduate students, in a manner that greatly enhances their education and career opportunities.”

Rosanne Keathley, assistant professor in the department of health education, was selected as the recipient of the “outstanding service” award.

“Just take a look at her FES 5 materials—She is involved in many service projects and has stayed active in these areas for years: Merit Badge Review, ARC (American Red Cross), AHA (American Heart Association)…and the list goes on,” one nomination form said.

Marsha Harman, associate professor of psychology, was recognized, not only by her peers but by students who were able to nominate, for her “outstanding teaching.” Nominees for this category were required to submit a 15-minute video of their teaching.

“Dr. Harman’s teaching has been consistently exemplary,” one nomination form said. “Dr. Harman routinely goes ‘beyond the call of duty’ for her students. The point has not gone unnoticed by her students as her teaching evaluations attest. She is truly deserving of the recognition for her teaching that this award will provide.”

Nominations were accepted last semester, before the colleges were realigned, and recipients were chosen by a committee representing every department in the college. The awards included a trophy and a $250 check.

“The department chairs and I had been talking for a couple of years about how we would like to recognize our outstanding faculty members for their accomplishments,” Brown said. “We agreed that we had a number of faculty members in our college who consistently performed at an exemplary level and felt that their accomplishments were worthy of recognition.”

Warner said the college wanted to do something separate from the university awards, without interfering with them, because the university awards are selected from a larger pool of people and sometimes their faculty aren’t recognized for what they contribute.

“This (the awards), even though it is a very small way to recognize, it does recognize people who may not have won a university-wide award,” Warner said. “We like to recognize what we see as quality work, and we felt like it would be more credible coming from the colleagues of these individuals more so than just the department chairs. It means more to have the colleagues nominate them.”

The campaign for nominations for the 2004-2005 awards will begin in November this year, in order to give the committee more time for consideration, Warner said.

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SHSU Media Contact: Jennifer Gauntt
Aug. 25, 2004
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