Around the College
This article was originally published in the August 1998 issue of CLASnotes.
Department News
English
Brandon Kershnerand Cheryl Herr of the University of Iowa were academic organizers of the 16th International James Joyce Symposium held in Rome, Italy June 14-20, "Classic Joyce." The conference was attended by roughly 500 scholars and students; plenary speakers included Umberto Eco, Hugh Kenner, Declan Kiberd, and Fritz Senn. Kershner was interviewed by the newspaper L'Estampa and also presented a paper entitled "There are Fairies at the Bottom of my Jargon: Framing Rudy and Photography." He has been nominated to the Board of Trustees of the International James Joyce Foundation. Kershner and Herr will edit a conference volume.
Kevin McCarthy recently taught a three-week, university-level course entitled "The Maritime History of Greece" on the Aegean island of Paros.
Geology
David Foster will be awarded the Stillwell medal from the Geological Society of Australia. The medal is awarded every two years for the best paper published in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences. The award ceremony will take place at the meeting of the Geological Society of Australia in July.
Tony Randazzo was elected president pro tem of the Faculty Assembly of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in elections held this spring. Tony will be responsible for heading the committee that determines the agenda for the Assembly during the 1998-99 academic year.
David Dilcher (Florida Museum of Natural History) was awarded the Birbal Sahni Foundation Medal for outstanding research on the fossil history of plants for 1998. He travelled to Lucknow, India, last winter to receive the award.
Luncheon Honors Outgoing Associate Deans
A farewell luncheon was held on June 29 for outgoing associate deans Elizabeth Langland, Chuck Frazier and Larry Severy (above, left). Joe Glover (Math) replaced Langland as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs on July 1, Albert Matheny (above, right) (POL) replaced Severy as Associate Dean for Student Affairs on July 1, and Lisa McElwee-White (CHE) will replace Chuck Frazier as Associate Dean for Administrative Affairs this month.
Dickison Named President of American Classical League
Sheila K. Dickison, Director of the Honors Program and a member of the Classics Department, was recently elected President of the American Classical League for a two-year term. She succeeds Glenn Knudsvig of the Classics Department of the University of Michigan.
The ACL was founded in 1919 with the purpose of fostering the study of classical languages in the United States and Canada and has its headquarters at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The League has 4500 members including teachers of Latin, Greek and the Classics on the elementary, secondary and college levels.
During her term of office Dickison hopes to increase visibility for the many programs sponsored by ACL. Improving articulation among all levels of the study of Latin is also another important priority.
Center for African Studies Awarded Ford Foundation Grant
In June, the Ford Foundation approved a grant of $148,000 to the UF Center for African Studies. Michael Chege, the Center's Director, says the grant will be used for "inter-disciplinary research on environmental conservation in Uganda (East Africa), involving UF scientists and social scientists and their counterparts at Makerere University in Kampala, an institution with which we have had a long collaborative relationship."
The grant will help support summer workshops in Uganda, basic research on two sites and graduate training at UF. According to Chege, the Foundation's selection committee liked the Center's grant proposal because it integrated research in the biological sciences with environmental work in the social sciences. The grants principal investigators are Chege (Political Science), Colin Chapman (Zoology), Lauren Chapman (Zoology), Thomas Crisman (Environmental Engineering), Abe Goldman (Geography) and Hunt Davis (History).
Geology Receives Endowment
The Geology Department has been awarded a $200,000 endowment by IMC-Agrico, one of the largest phosphate mining operations in the state. The Department solicited the partnership as part of its overall efforts to establish and build a Geology endowment in recognition of its 50th anniversary. An anniversary celebration will take place November 6-8 on campus and will include a scientific/professional day-long symposium and the re-opening of Williamson Hall as the Department's new headquarters.
Feagin Elected President of ASA
Joe Feagin (Sociology) was recently elected president of the American Sociological Association. This year he will serve as president-elect and will chair the program committee. Next year, Feagin will preside over the ASA council as president, and in his third year he'll remain on the council as ex-president. Feagin says his goals during the three-year commitment are to "get sociologists to pay more attention to research that can help democratize the society further along racial, gender and class lines."
Orientation BBQ for AIM
OASIS (Office for Academic Support & Institutional Services) hosted an orientation barbecue in June to welcome CLAS AIM (Achievement in Mainstreaming) students to UF.
International Colloquium Honors CLAS Astronomer
The last week in May Heinrich Eichhorn (Astronomy) traveled to the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Vienna in Austria for an International Colloquium planned in honor of his 70th birthday. The Colloquium's organizers, from many universities and observatories including the University of Graz and the University of Vienna where Eichhorn holds honorary professorships, say they created the event to "honor a brilliant researcher, an excellent teacher, a fine colleague and a good friend."
Eichhorn was born in Vienna in 1927 and graduated from the University of Vienna in 1949 after studying astronomy, philosophy, and mathematics. He came to the US in 1956, and taught at Georgetown and Wesleyan Universities, before founding the Department of Astronomy at the University of South Florida. In 1979 he moved to Gainesville and became the first chair of UF's Astronomy Department.
During the two-day colloquium, which featured over 20 presentations by researchers and astronomers from around the world, the scientific council of the main observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Pulkowo awarded Eichorn an honorary doctorate. UF participants in the event included Stanley Dermott, Haywood Smith and Robert Wilson.
Matheson Center Recognizes CLAS
On June 23 The Matheson Historical Center (MHC) presented Dean Will Harrison and Associate Dean Chuck Frazier with the 1998 Matheson Award for their work renovating and restoring CLAS buildings. (From left, above) Blair Reeves (MHC), Roy Hunt (Law), Sam Proctor (History), and Mark Barrow (MHC) received special recognition at the awards ceremony, held in the McQuown room, for their contributions to historic preservation on campus. These four played significant roles in saving Floyd, Anderson, Flint and the Women's Gym from demolition in the 70s and 80s, and continue to promote the restoration of UF's historic NE quadrant.
