Humanities Faculty Spotlight:

College Recognizes Outstanding Faculty

In October, the College of Humanities was pleased to hold its annual recognition reception to celebrate the many achievements of its faculty. Major College awards were announced including the Humanities Distinguished Professors, the Diversity Enhancement Award, the Virginia Hull Research Award, and the Exemplary Faculty Award.

Two faculty members were given the designation of Humanities Distinguished Professor, an honorific title that recognizes senior colleagues who have earned distinction in all three areas of professional endeavor, and whose work, especially in professional service and scholarship, has earned them national and international recognition of the highest sort. This year’s honorees were: Professor of English Lee Abbott, a celebrated teacher and prize-winning author of short stories; and Professor of History David Cressy, an internationally renowned scholar who has held fellowships in every corner of the world for his many books on early modern England. This year’s winner of the Humanities Diversity Enhancement Award for her innovative work to promote diversity was Sai Bhatawadekar. Bhatawadekar, who received her Ph.D. from the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures this summer, is now a lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. As a result of her administrative, diplomatic, and pedagogical efforts, students at Ohio State have been introduced, through Indian poetry, religion, and philosophy, Indian cinema, cuisine, and cricket, to a culture and a heritage that are a vital part of our world today.

The College was also pleased to recognize Julia Nelson-Hawkins, assistant professor in the Department of Greek and Latin, as the recipient of the Virginia Hull Research Award. Nelson-Hawkins received the Hull Award for her project, "Medicine in Augustan Rome: Therapoetics after Actium." The proposed book, an investigation of medicine and disease in the context of Roman politics, is an exciting contribution to classical studies and will be of interest to both specialists and generalists alike.

The Exemplary Faculty Award is the College's most important recognition of achievements in research, teaching, and service. This year's award recipient was Amy Shuman, professor in the Department of English, who has carved out new territory for folklore research in her projects on conversational narrative, orality and literacy, folklore and feminist theory, and ethnicity studies. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, has participated in think-tanks from Taiwan to Jerusalem, and has worked in every field from stone carving to sociolinguistics.

As a teacher she is a force of nature, working with graduate students in communications, anthropology, sociology, art education, education policy and leadership, education theory and practice, comparative studies, women’s studies, fine art, photography and, of course, English. She was the founder of the Center of Folklore Studies, and has served Ohio State and the central Ohio community in ways that are measureless.