Olson Named Piper Professor of 2006
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Piper Professor James S. Olson |
James S. Olson, who has written more books and won more awards
than any faculty member in Sam Houston State University history,
has been selected as a Piper Professor of 2006.
Olson, distinguished
professor of history, is one of 15 college and university professors
from throughout Texas to be so designated. Olson's selection
means that Sam Houston State University has had a Piper Professor
for the past three years.
"I am indeed
honored to be named a Piper Professor, mostly because of the
respect I have for other SHSU faculty members who have received
the award," said Olson. "I am honored to be in their company. Also,
I think the award sheds light on the quality of Sam Houston State
University.
"Caroline Crimm
was named a Piper Professor in 2004 and Vic Sower in 2005. Few
colleges or universities in Texas have ever received the award
three years in a row. That says something about Sam Houston
State University."
The Minnie
Stevens Piper Foundation of San Antonio makes 15 awards of $5,000
annually "for superior teaching at the college level." Their
program was started in 1958 with funding provided by Randall
Gordon Piper and Minnie Stevens Piper, both of whom died in 1955.
Last spring
Olson became the first Sam Houston State University faculty member
to receive all three of the university's faculty excellence awards.
He won the Excellence in Teaching Award in 1977, Excellence in
Research in 1988, and Excellence in Service in 2005.
A year earlier
the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the
Council for Advancement and Support of Education honored Olson
as the outstanding university professor in Texas for 2004.
Olson has written
more than 40 books on U. S. and world history, two of which have
been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
His best known
book is "John Wayne American," which was nominated for the
1995 Pulitzer Prize in biography. "Bathsheba's Breast: Women,
Cancer, and History," was nominated for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize
in history.
It also won
the 2003 History of Science Prize from the Association of American
Publishers and was named by the Los Angeles Times as one of the
best non-fiction books in America in 2002.
His most influential
book historically, he believes, is "A Line in the Sand: The Alamo
in Blood and Memory." It won the Deolece Parmelee Award for Outstanding
Research.
Olson earned
bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University and the master's
and doctorate from the State University of New York at
Stony Brook. He has taught at Sam Houston State since 1972.
Many of his
accomplishments have been during his battle over the past 25
years with cancer, which caused the amputation of his left hand
and forearm in 1988. A malignant tumor called an oligodendroglioma
also resulted in brain surgery in 2000.
Through it
all he has remained upbeat, and incredibly productive. He is
completing a book on the MD Anderson Cancer Center, which will
be a combined history of the institution and a history of the
modern development of cancer 0medicine.
"I am also
in the beginning stages of a biography of former President Richard
M. Nixon," he said.
He also gives
constant praise to colleagues and students, and the university
for which he has worked and which has benefited so greatly from
his work.
"I consider
it one of the great blessings in my life to have been able to
spend my career here," he said.
Sam Houston State
University's previous Piper Professors include Hazel Floyd, education
(1961); George Killinger, sociology (1968); Mary Frances Park,
education (1981); Fisher Tull, music (1984); Ralph Pease, English
(1987); Vic Lukaszewski, political science (1992); Rolando V. del
Carmen, criminal justice (1998); Caroline Crimm, history (2004)
and Vic Sower, management (2005).
—END—
SHSU Media Contact: Frank Krystyniak
May 2, 2006
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