1998 Academic Staff Excellence Awards announced
Seven UW–Madison professionals have been honored with Academic Staff Excellence Awards for their outstanding work in leadership, public service, research and teaching.
The seven winners were honored at a chancellor’s reception March 24 and will be recognized during a ceremony at the Academic Staff Assembly meeting May 11. The winners were nominated by colleagues and chosen by a special selection committee.
This is the eighth year that academic staff have been honored with the awards. The excellence in service award was added last year to recognize sustained personal commitment to UW–Madison. There are five award categories overall.
Six awards carry $2,500 stipends; the Award for Excellence in Teaching carries a $5,000 stipend.
The 1998 recipients are:
Onno BrouwerChancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research
In the past year, Wisconsin learned what members of the UW–Madison community have known for years: Brouwer is a truly gifted cartographer.
Brouwer, director of UW–Madison’s Cartography Lab, did much of the artwork for and spearheaded production of the Cultural Map of Wisconsin, a striking map of the state’s history and culture that has won wide acclaim and a handful of national awards. Most recently, the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping recognized Brouwer’s work with a national award for map design.
The Cultural Map is one of merely hundreds of maps produced by Brouwer for faculty, staff and the community. His work illustrates many publications of the UW Press, including the book Wisconsin Land and Life, as well as three volumes of The History of Cartography and four editions of the textbook Elements of Cartography. Also among his productions are Wisconsin bicycle trail maps and several maps of campus.
As the cartography lab’s director, Brouwer serves as mentor to geography students learning the complicated art of mapmaking.
“He is a wonderful hands-on teacher, and he has influenced the lives and careers of countless students who have worked in his laboratory,” write Robert Ostergren and David Woodward, professors of geography, in nominating Brouwer.
Brouwer’s 20 years in the laboratory have coincided with one of the most technologically tumultuous times in cartography. As associate director from 1986-97 and director since 1997, Brouwer has guided the laboratory through a conversion from photomechanical mapmaking to an entirely digital process.
“Onno has led the laboratory through a difficult and technically demanding change,” write Ostergren and Woodward. Nevertheless, they point out that he has excelled as an administrator, managing the laboratory as a self-supporting unit.
Mariellen KuehnRobert Heideman Award for Excellence in Public Service
Like most civil-rights champions, Kuehn knows that social justice must be extended to the most disenfranchised of Americans.
With that belief as her guide, Kuehn has made a lasting difference for America’s ethnic minorities who have disabilities, people who often face civil-rights double jeopardy. She has opened new opportunities for this group on a state and national scale and has helped create the first national organization dedicated to their welfare.
During her 13-year tenure with the Waisman Center, Kuehn has spearheaded development of the National Family for the Advancement of Minorities with Disabilities. The group brought civil-rights and disability organizations together for the first time, bringing focus on a community that was often alienated from mainstream life.
Kuehn’s academic base is as associate director of the Waisman Center’s University Affiliated Program, part of a national network to improve the lives of people with developmental disabilities through training, service and research. Waisman Center Director Terrence Dolan says Kuehn is not only a superb grant-getter, but she has helped expand the role of people with disabilities in Waisman Center programs.
Throughout her career, she has given her time to literally dozens of state and national organizations for the disabled. Kuehn is a long-time member of the Wisconsin Council on Developmental Disabilities, and has served in countless roles for the American Association of University- Affiliated Programs.
“In the cause of social justice for all people with disabilities,” says John McClain, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, “Dr. Kuehn is a national treasure.”
Nellie K. LaughlinChancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research
Childhood lead exposure remains a common, yet preventable, disease facing children today, affecting one in six American children before they reach six years of age. Laughlin’s research is helping sound the alarm.
Laughlin, an associate scientist with the psychology department, has for nearly two decades studied the developmental and behavioral effects of childhood exposure to lead. Through her research at the Harlow Primate Laboratory, the nation has a better understanding of the catastrophic effects of lead exposure and solid guidance on treating and preventing the problem.
Her studies have been cited as a key component leading to the federal government’s decision to ban leaded gasoline in the United States.
Hill Goldsmith, chair of the psychology department, says her work has demonstrated the nature of damage caused by lead exposure, which can lower attention skills and damage the auditory system. Through her work with rhesus monkeys, she is also a leader in showing how lead affects social measures, such as mother-infant interaction and play behavior.
The studies also showed how lead exposure affects children in different stages of life and evaluated the efficacy of different therapies for treating lead exposure.
Laughlin is the only non-faculty member of the psychology department to be named principal investigator of a major federally-funded research project. “Dr. Laughlin not only has spearheaded a remarkable research program, she has made available invaluable research opportunities to many undergraduate students in her lab each semester,” Goldsmith writes in nominating material.
Donna LewisWisconsin Alumni Award for Excellence in Leadership
Check most any electrical and computer engineering course at UW- Madison; chances are Lewis has made a mark on its quality.
As senior administrative program specialist for the department, Lewis performs an astounding range of duties, from managing a $4.6-million budget to producing annual reports to overseeing capital projects. But her greatest impact comes from guiding and inspiring the department’s 50 teaching assistants.
Since joining the department in 1989, Lewis has overseen the selection, scheduling, training and assigning of TAs for the department. That task would be a full-time job for most people, but Lewis brings a high level of energy to the cause.
She assigns TAs to more than 100 classes and labs based on their expertise and experience, while paying attention to the students’ own course loads. She organizes TA orientations, arranges brown-bag lunches for TAs and faculty to explore teaching issues, and provides feedback to TAs to improve their teaching.
Lewis might have the most well-worn carpet in any engineering office. “The parade of people who need to see her never ends,” writes department chair Willis Tompkins in nominating material.
There are professional measures of her impact, such as co-authored publications on preparing teaching assistants. But there are personal ones too, like the fact that she knows every TA by name before each semester begins and keeps in touch with many of them after graduation.
A 25-year employee of UW–Madison, Lewis’ organizational talents are in demand. She has served on 12 College of Engineering and 10 campus-wide committees since 1989.
“She is a thinker and a pusher, and the combination of those two qualities often makes things happen,” writes Jean Meyer Buehlman, an instructional program manager in physics, in nominating material.
Abigail LoomisWisconsin Alumni Association Award for Excellence in Leadership
Thanks to Loomis, there are thousands of faculty, staff and students who can successfully navigate the UW–Madison libraries.
Coordinator of library user education for the General Library System (GLS), Loomis is credited with articulating the value of information literacy and building support for library user education among campus and library administrators and faculty.
Her work has transformed the once-fragmented and overlooked teaching initiatives of individual librarians across campus into a cohesive program that has gained the respect of faculty. That program is also viewed by librarians at other university libraries as an example to emulate.
Loomis has taken the lead in forming partnerships with both the GLS Automation Services Department and the Division of Information Technology. She was the major force behind grant proposals that funded three classrooms, which were furnished with presentation equipment and student workstations and an interactive multimedia computer instructional program, CLUE, that has received national attention. CLUE is used in helping undergraduates meet the university’s new communication requirement.
Under Loomis’ leadership, the Library User Education Program has grown three-fold, from 660 instructional sessions for 8,409 users in 1988-89, to 2,007 sessions for more than 27,000 faculty, staff and students in 1996-97. She has brought campus libraries into the SOAR and Welcome Week programs on a formal basis and has worked with other campus orientation programs to insure that libraries have a significant presence.
Loomis was selected Librarian of the Year in 1993 by campus librarians.
“Abbie is a proven leader among UW–Madison librarians,” said Ken Frazier, GLS director, “and has effectively strengthened the role of libraries in the educational experience of students on this campus, particularly undergraduates.”
Laurey K. Martin-BergChancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching
Instructors in basic language classes in the Department of French and Italian now include video and Internet sites as part of their regular syllabi, thanks in large measure to the efforts of Martin-Berg.
During her more than 20 years of teaching in the department — she began as a teaching assistant in 1974 — Martin-Berg has made her curricular mark by developing new testing procedures more in tune with course goals and introducing such language vehicles as feature films, cartoons, advertisements, and articles and essays into the classroom.
Now a senior lecturer, she also explores French and French-speaking cultures through examining how various arts influence each other and by incorporating different kinds of writing tasks into writing intensive courses.
Martin-Berg has been instrumental in the training of teaching assistants as well, both in her department and the College of Letters and Science. “Laurey provided her TAs the opportunity to work together, to disagree with one another and to learn how to compromise when writing exams and creating pedagogical materials,” writes graduate student Sharon P. Johnson in nominating material. “She allows students to make mistakes and discover better ways of teaching on their own.”
“Her ability to constantly renew her teaching, to inspire generations of our teaching assistants through her work with them, to effortlessly turn reluctant students into impassioned majors, and to be able to keep publishing and researching is quite simply outstanding,” writes Judith Miller, department chair, in nominating material.
Janice C. WheatonChancellor’s Award for Excellence in Service to the University
Wheaton could very well be UW–Madison’s standard-bearer for service.
Since 1967, when she started as a teaching specialist in the Department of Bacteriology, Wheaton has demonstrated a boundless dedication to students and the university.
During her career, she has directed the minority and disadvantaged- student programs and served as assistant dean for academic affairs and administration in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences; was associate director for academic affairs in the Athletic Department; and since 1993 has worked as an assistant dean of students.
In addition to counseling hundreds of students, Wheaton has helped design the Dean of Students’ SpeakUp program, a discriminatory harassment reporting system for students and has been actively involved in the Summer Orientation, Advising and Registration program, otherwise known as SOAR.
“Her tireless search for resources and her willingness to ‘go the extra mile’ for students has given her a reputation as someone who really cares,” writes Suzanne Jones, coordinator of the race relations education program in the Dean of Students Office, in nominating Wheaton.
And when the need arose last fall for an interim director in the Campus Assistance Center, Dean of Students Mary Rouse knew she could turn to Wheaton.
Wheaton’s service has extended to numerous academic committees over the years, and she has served on many civic boards and commissions as well. But she is probably best known outside of UW–Madison as a talented jazz and blues singer.
“Just as she reaches out to each student, faculty and staff member on campus, she connects with the general public with a beautiful mellow voice after hours,” Rouse writes in a nomination letter. “Our community is extremely fortunate to have Jan as a dedicated staff member in student services and a local musical celebrity.”