January 27 , 2006
E. Thomas Sullivan
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Julius E. Davis
Chair in Law
Dear Faculty, Staff and Students:
Greetings in the New Year! I hope you are returning from break well rested and ready to engage in an academically productive spring semester. As Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, I am delighted to highlight the recent achievements of a few of your colleagues as exemplars of academic excellence on the Twin Cities campus.
Congratulations to award-winning University faculty and students:
- Professor John Campbell (College of Liberal Arts) was awarded the 2006 American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology, a lifetime achievement award and the highest honor in applied psychology.
- CLA senior Diana Xuan Fu has been named a 2006 Rhodes Scholar. Fu, an honors student majoring in global studies and political science, will graduate summa cum laude in May 2006 and plans to pursue a master of philosophy in developmental studies at Oxford.
- Professor Apostolos Georgopoulos (Medical School) has been named a Regents Professor, the University's highest level of recognition, and also has recently been named the McKnight Presidential Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Associate Professor Mary Jo Kreitzer (School of Nursing) was inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, comprised of 1,500 distinguished nursing leaders who are among the most influential in the profession and within healthcare.
- Associate Professor Richard Lee (College of Liberal Arts) received the 2005 Early Career Award for distinguished contributions to ethnic minority psychology, granted from the American Psychological Association's Minority Fellowship Program.
- Professor Mikhail Shifman (Institute of Technology) is the recipient of the American Physical Society's 2006 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize, in recognition of his contributions to theoretical high energy physics and for communicating the excitement of science to the public.
Congratulations to the 2006-08 recipients of McKnight Land-Grant Professorship awards, which provide research support to advance the careers of the University's most promising junior faculty (http://www.grad.umn.edu/faculty-staff/mcknight/land_grant_recipients.html):
- Demoz Gebre-Egziabher (Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics)
- Yongdae Kim (Computer Science & Engineering)
- Efie Kokkoli (Chemical Engineering & Material Science)
- Ronald R. Krebs (Political Science)
- Angus W. MacDonald, III (Psychology)
- Steven M. Manson (Geography)
- David N. Rapp (Educational Psychology)
- Stergios I. Roumeliotis (Computer Science & Engineering)
- Mark J. Thomas (Neuroscience)
- Cynthia Weinig (Plant Biology)
Congratulations to all faculty and staff who have successfully secured new research grants in the past few months. Recent noteworthy examples among many include:
- A $2.8 million award from the National Science Foundation to the College of Biological Sciences and the Institute of Technology to support interdisciplinary training for ecologists and civil engineers;
- A $19.5 million award from the National Science Foundation to the Institute of Technology's Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA). This award is the NSF's largest ever single research investment in mathematics and has made the IMA the nation's top funded math institute;
- A $5.8 million award from the National Institutes of Health to the Medical School to form a collaboration with four other universities to investigate the link between the nervous system and cardiovascular disease; and
- A $10 million award from the National Cancer Institute to a team of School Health researchers to study obesity prevention and obesity's link to cancer.
New Women's Faculty Cabinet Named:
As noted earlier, I established a Women's Faculty Cabinet last semester to report to me, through Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs Arlene Carney. The Cabinet's mission is to provide a leadership base to improve and enrich the academic and professional environments for women faculty on the Twin Cities campus. The inaugural members are: Elizabeth Arendt (Medical School); Heidi Barajas (General College); Carol Chomsky (Law School); Rhonda Franklin Drayton (Institute of Technology); Tasoulla Hadjiyanni (College of Human Ecology); and Peggy Nelson (College of Liberal Arts).
Transforming the U through Strategic Positioning:
I deeply appreciate the diligent and dedicated effort of all faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members who are serving on the 34 strategic positioning task forces. Preliminary recommendations from the first 11 task forces are posted for public review and comment until January 27th at http://www.umn.edu/transforming_the_u . At this stage, each member of the University community is an important resource in this work. If you haven't already done so, I encourage you to take some time to review these preliminary recommendations and share your comments and feedback with the task forces. Your thoughtful and considered opinions will contribute to the development of the strongest, most creative and effective ideas. The final recommendations from these 11 task forces are due on February 3rd.
It is clear to me that excellence abounds among the faculty, staff, and students of the University of Minnesota. Today's collective efforts to plan a world class future for the University of Minnesota will set in motion tremendous institutional transformation. I look forward to the great progress we will forge together throughout the spring.
Sincerely,
E. Thomas Sullivan
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Julius E. Davis
Chair in Law
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