Meredith Honors Outstanding Faculty and Staff

Six professors and three staff members were honored during the Meredith College Faculty and Staff Awards and Recognition Ceremony, held on campus on April 23. Retiring faculty/staff and employees with five, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 26+ years of service were also honored.

PAULINE DAVIS PERRY AWARDS

Monica McKinney, assistant professor of education, award for research and publication

Walda Powell, associate professor of chemistry, award for excellence in teaching

The Pauline Davis Perry Award for Research and Publication is given to a faculty member who has done exceptional research, publication, and/or artistic achievement. The Pauline Davis Perry Award for Excellence in Teaching is given to an outstanding teacher at Meredith.

LAURA HARRILL PRESIDENTIAL AWARDS

Brent Pitts, professor of foreign languages

Alyson Colwell-Waber, dean of special academic programs and Ann Gleason, dean of students

The Laura Harrill Presidential Awards are presented to faculty members in recognition of their noteworthy contributions to the advancement of Meredith College.

HARRY AND MARION EBERLY FACULTY DEVELOPMENT AWARD

Janet Nelson, assistant professor of religion

Chris Eschbach, assistant professor of physical education

The Harry and Marion Eberly Faculty Development Awards are given to two deserving faculty members for the purpose of helping them progress in their area of expertise.

The cash awards are funded through the Faculty Applied Meredith Endowment, or FAME, established in 1977 as an independent fund for supplemental faculty benefits.

PRESIDENTIAL STAFF AWARD

Rick McBane, media services assistant

Established in 2002, the Presidential Staff Award is given in recognition of exemplary service to the Meredith community. The Meredith College president chooses the recipient.

STAFF RECOGNITION AWARDS

Heidi Fletcher, associate director of admissions

Belinda Nicholson, accounts receivable/billing coordinator

Staff Recognition Awards are presented annually to two staff members who, through their job performance, have demonstrated initiative, teamwork, extra effort and outstanding customer service to the Meredith community.

Faculty and staff members who retired this year are

Allen Page, professor of religion

Carolyn Happer, associate professor of history

Nan Miller, assistant professor of English

Nona Short, professor of photography and foreign languages

Profiles on this year's award winners will be featured in future issues of "In A Nutshell."

Meredith College Interior Design Students Win Otto Zenke Competition
By Heather Crenshaw

The work of three Meredith College students majoring in interior design was recognized at the Carolinas Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers (CCASID) spring meeting, held March 27.

Senior Kelley Myerberg, of Chapel Hill, won first place in the 2004 Otto Zenke Competition project for her restaurant design, Typhoon. Myerberg received $750 and the Meredith College Interior Design program received a matching $750.

Seniors Andrea Knox, of Benson, and Kristen Oldham, of Winterville, won second place for their restaurant design, The Lobby. They shared a $500 cash prize.

The annual Otto Zenke student competition is open to all college and university Interior Design programs with Student Chapters of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) in North and South Carolina.

Zenke was esteemed as one of the top interior designers in the world; he had design studios in Greensboro, New York and London. A scholarship fund was established in his memory for interior design students in the Carolinas. This year the competition's project specifications were for the design of an upscale restaurant.

Martha Burpitt, professor of human environmental sciences, assigned the Otto Zenke competition project to her senior level interior design class; the three strongest projects that met all aspects of the problem statement were then submitted to the competition.

Meredith College Forms Partnership with Shodor Foundation
By Melyssa Allen

Meredith College has formed a partnership with the Shodor Foundation, Inc., to promote the ideas of computational science.

The Shodor Foundation, located in Durham, N.C., is a non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the advancement of science and math education, specifically through the use of modeling and simulation technologies. The foundation's name "recalls the role of the hammer in the shodering process of making and applying gold leaf: we work to extend valuable educational resources and opportunities as far as possible." (www.shodor.org)

The partnership agreement between Meredith and the Shodor Foundation explains the importance of this new partnership in this way, "In a global society where quantitative reasoning, visualization and modeling are vital, it is incumbent upon collegiate programs to provide students with opportunities to develop such analytical skills and understandings."

The Shodor Foundation partnership will provide the following benefits to Meredith College: quarterly full-day equivalent professional development provided free by Shodor Foundation staff; newly created and revised JAVA applets tailored specifically for Meredith College Faculty course needs; and up to four student internships per year at the Shodor Foundation.

In turn, Meredith faculty and students will be asked to give feedback (via web forms) on the applets. Meredith will also support travel for a small team applying to and participating in National Computational Science Institute events over the next year.

Puppetry Troupe Talanta Visits Meredith College
By Melyssa Allen

Students at Meredith had the opportunity to see a unique method used to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, courtesy of a group of special visitors March 29-April 3.

Talanta, a puppetry troupe from Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya, visited several science classes and the theatre department's puppetry class, to illustrate how theatre and puppetry can be a more effective way to convey information than a regular lecture.

John Mecham, professor of biology, invited Talanta. Dr. Philip Owino, a plant pathologist at Kenyatta University, who Mecham met in California at the SENCER Institute in 2002 and 2003, accompanied the group. (See article in March issue of "In A Nutshell.")

"Puppetry is one of many activities used to communicate the HIV/AIDS message to our students and community (at Kenyatta University)," Owino said. The puppetry troupe came about because "we realized certain things could only be mentioned indirectly, because there is a lot of stigma and fear."

The performance that the group, which consisted of Gilbert Asoka, Jack Omondi, and Joab Onyango, shared was about a college-age couple named Sue and Freddie. A narrator also talks to the puppet characters and to the audience.

The goal of the play was to inform the audience about the ways that HIV is spread, and to dispel misconceptions about people with HIV or AIDS.

"Cultural beliefs have led to the spread of HIV in Africa," said Owino. "This performance is one way to deal with these cultural beliefs."

"Puppetry is a new form of performing arts in Kenya, so it attracts attention and also entertains,"Asoka explained. "Puppetry helps us get away with sensitive messages, without labeling any of the actors."

Talanta's scripts are designed to enable a dialogue with the audience. "We ask questions of the audience so they can give solutions to their own problems," Asoka said.

While in North Carolina, Talanta also visited Duke University. Meredith students will have an opportunity to learn more about Kenya this fall, when Owino will be a visiting professor at Meredith.

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