Faculty Merit Awards Banquet

April 29, 2019
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Faculty merit award winners

A new program to recognize excellence in faculty research and scholarship has been developed at SUA within the Academic Affairs office. The program builds upon an earlier program known as the Course Relief program, developed by Ed Feasel and Michael Weiner, which awarded points to faculty based on their publications in research journals and in books. The new program, codeveloped by Dean of Faculty Bryan Penprase, VPAA Ed Feasel, and Associate Dean Michael Weiner, includes an analysis of submitted faculty publications that recognizes faculty publications within the top-tier academic presses and journals, as well as high profile activities within scholarly disciplines. These additional components include chairing and organizing conferences, publishing and editing academic journals and representing SUA at a wide variety of academic settings and performance venues. Faculty submit their works in a bi-annual cycle, the first of which occurred in September 2019.

Dean Bryan Penprase and Associate Dean Michael Weiner developed criteria for prioritizing the highest impact journals and most prestigious academic presses using a wide variety of internationally recognized measures. The effort has been developed to identify and recognize those scholars within SUA’s faculty who are having great impacts across the world in their research and scholarship, which greatly benefits SUA students by enabling faculty to bring deeper and fresher insights into their subjects in the classroom and in capstone projects. The research also enhances the reputation and prestige of SUA, and we are grateful to all of SUA’s faculty for their hard work in all of their diverse scholarly activities. Our first 11 SUA faculty selected for a Merit Award are listed below, and we congratulate them for their achievements which represent an amazing range and depth of intellectual interests.

SUA 2019 Merit Award Winners: 

  • Robert Allinson
  • Shane Barter
  • Esther Chang
  • Sarah England
  • Dongyoun Hwang
  • Edward Lowe
  • Jim Merod
  • Lisa MacLeod
  • Nalini Rao
  • Kristi Wilson
  • James Williams

The Merit Award winners were recognized in an Awards Banquet at the Athenaeum on April 25. The event was opened by Dean of Faculty Bryan Penprase, who introduced VPAA Ed Feasel, who provided opening words that described the history of faculty research at SUA, and an overview of program and congratulations to the faculty winners. Danny Habuki provided an inspirational speech to the gathered faculty and presented the Merit Awards to the faculty. Arch Asawa, SUA’s CFO, was also in attendance and has provided crucial support to the new program.  The Merit Award program will continue with a biannual submission schedule, and faculty will be invited to submit their materials for consideration for the next round during Fall Semester 2020 for awards in Spring 2021. 

SUA 2019 Merit Award Winners and Research Interests:

  • Robert Allinson, Professor of Philosophy. Professor Allinson’s recent books and book chapters include A Metaphysics for the Future (Routledge), and book chapters such as “An Aesthetic Theory in Four Dimensions: Collingwood and Beyond,” “Leibniz, Infinity and the Nature of the Divine,” “An Aristotelian Renaissance: Aristotelian Ethics for Today.” He also includes numerous refereed journal articles in his recent works that discuss philosophical dimensions of current and historical events in the US, China, and Europe.
  • Shane Barter, Associate Professor of Comparative Politics. Professor Barter has produced numerous edited volumes and chapters in books discussing a wide variety of issues in Southeast Asia. Recent books include a monograph entitled Explaining the Genetic Footprints of Catholic and Protestant Colonizers (Palgrave Macmillan), a monograph entitled Civilian Strategy in Civil War: Insights from Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines (Palgrave Macmillan) an edited volume with SUA professor Michael Weiner that arose from SUA’s Pacific Basin course entitled An Introduction to the Pacific Basin (Routledge), as well as book chapters such as “Southeast Asia: Unity in ASEAN,” “Armed Conflict Across the Pacific: Patterns and Possibilities,” “The Age of Colonialisms,” and “Southeast Asia: Unity in Diversity.” His works also include numerous articles in refereed journals that discuss political and social dimensions in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the region.
  • Esther Chang, Professor of Psychology. Professor Chang has authored a monograph entitled Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Educational Psychology (McGraw-Hill), as well as numerous articles on intergenerational differences and psychological development, such as articles on youth in foster care, and the parenting strategies of kirogi mothers.
  • Sarah England, Associate Professor of Anthropology. Professor England’s recent book, Writing Terror on the Bodies of Women: Media Coverage of Violence against Women in Guatemala (Lexington Books) details the state of women and violence in Guatemala, and her recent book chapters include “Latin America: A Living and Changing Artifact” (co-authored with SUA professor Ian Read), “Gender Violence: Honor, Shame and the Violation of Bodies in Guatemala and India,” and “Migration, Immigration and Settlement within the Pacific Basin” (co-authored with SUA professor Michael Weiner).
  • Dongyoun Hwang, Professor of Asian Studies. Professor Hwang has authored the book The International Conferences that Built the Republic of Korea (National Museum of Korean Contemporary History), as well as a book chapter on “Anarchism in Korea: Independence, Transnationalism, and the Question of National Development,” and journal articles such as “Notes on Wang Jimgwei’s Wartime Collaboration and Asianism during the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1945.”
  • Edward Lowe, Associate Professor of Anthropology. Professor Lowe has written book chapters such as “Kinship, Funerals and the Durability of Culture in Chuuk,” “Oceania: an Overview,” “Rapid Societal Change and Mental Health Vulnerabilities in the Pacific Basin,” and “Methods to Inform Public Problems: Toward an Ecocultural Framing of Poverty.” He also has a number of articles in refereed journals studying social change, and the epidemic of suicide within Oceania and Micronesia, and serves as the editor of the journal Ethos.
  • Jim Merod, Professor of American Literature. Professor Merod has co-authored a book with jazz saxophonist Benny Golson entitled Whisper Not: The Autobiography of Benny Golson (Temple University Press), as well as numerous articles discussing Shakespeare, “Styles of Democracy,” and “Freedom’s Changing Shape.”
  • Lisa MacLeod, Associate Professor of International Studies. Professor MacLeod has published on “China’s Security Council Engagement: The Impact of Normative and Causal Beliefs,” as well as contributed a book chapter on “International Relations in the Pacific Basin: Boundary Disputes.”
  • Nalini Rao, Associate Professor of World Art. Professor Rao has published a monograph entitled Lothal: A Glorious Civilization (Navbharat Publications), as well as book chapters on archaeology of Lothal and Dvaraka, and “Relation between Art and Archeology: Its Possibilities in Maritime Studies in India.” Her journal articles explore the works of Rabindranath Tagore, “Symbolism and Power in Royal Rituals,” and “Royal Religious Beneficence in Pre-modern India.”
  • Kristi Wilson, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition. Professor Wilson has co-authored a book entitled Italian Neorealism—Quotidian Storytelling and Transnational Horizons (Wiley-Blackwell), as well as book chapters on Community Cinema, “Trans-identity: Theory, Politics and Identity in the Pacific Basin” (co-authored with SUA professor Ryan Caldwell), and articles such as “Building Memory: Museums, Trauma, and the Aesthetics of Confrontation in Argentina.” 
  • James Williams, Professor of Rhetoric and Linguistics. Professor Williams recently completed a book entitled The Commodification of Education (Rowan and Littlefield), as well as journal articles such as “First-year Composition and Transfer: A quantitative study,” “Key Pedagogic Thinkers: Jean Baudrillard,” and “Composition and the Search for Self-Awareness.”