SPECIAL FRIDAY EDITION: FACULTY AWARD WINNERS

Scroll down to see the University Senate Award winners and the new faculty, dean, and associate dean emeriti.

Closeup of Xi Wang, in a coat and tie, as he smiles and looks downward to his left while sitting in a high-backed chair in a conference-room-type setting

Wang Named Distinguished University Professor

Xi Wang, professor of history, has been selected as IUP’s 2022-23 Distinguished University Professor. This is a title he and other past recipients of the award will hold for life.

A member of the IUP faculty since 1994, Wang has focused his teaching on African American history, 19th-century US history, and the history of American constitutionalism.

His work—which includes 16 books and scores of book chapters, journal articles, and conference presentations—has been featured in the New York Times and used as a model throughout China for graduate training in history and American studies.

Wang is the creator of the Chinese Historical Review, a highly regarded peer-reviewed journal, and was its editor-in-chief for 12 years. He has also led partnerships between US and Chinese historians that have reshaped China’s American studies programs.

At IUP, Wang played a key role in establishing the Asian Studies Minor (which laid the foundation for the BA program) and the Pan-African Studies Minor.

He said his greatest accomplishments in teaching have been through History 196, a Liberal Studies requirement that allows him to meet many students. Recently, he has focused that course on the evolution of race relations in the US and how that evolution has shaped American history.

The projects he will pursue in his year as Distinguished University Professor include creating a course on US immigration history and completing a book manuscript, tentatively titled “Make Every Freeman a Voter”: The American Story of Black Suffrage.

Learn more about Xi Wang’s selection as Distinguished University Professor.

UNIVERSITY SENATE AWARDS

Since 1969, the University Senate Awards have recognized faculty members for excellence in creative arts, research, service, and teaching. This year’s award recipients are as follows:

Todd Thompson head-and-shoulders portrait on a gray, textured background

Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching
Todd Thompson, Department of English
An IUP faculty member since 2009, Todd Thompson teaches literature and writing courses in the Liberal Studies program, the English BA program, the Cook Honors College, and the Literature and Criticism PhD program. He has served as his department’s MA coordinator and assistant chair. He is also treasurer-secretary of the American Humor Studies Association and contributing editor for Studies in American Humor. Author of The National Joker: Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Satire (2015), he has another book, Imperial Laughter, Comic Contact: Nineteenth-Century American Humor and Empire in the Pacific World, coming out next year.

Lorraine Guth head-and-shoulders portrait on a brown background

Distinguished Faculty Award for Research
Lorraine Guth, Department of Counseling
A member of the IUP faculty since 1998, Lorraine Guth is a highly respected scholar in group work facilitation, diversity issues in counseling, and teaching effectiveness. She has received international recognition for her work, including a recent qualitative study examining the perceived impact of Hurricane Maria on educators and students in Puerto Rico, which resulted in an article published in the CENTRO Journal. She also coauthored “Ten Ways to Intentionally Use Group Work to Transform Hate, Facilitate Courageous Conversations, and Enhance Community Building,” one of the most downloaded articles of 2021 in the Journal for Specialists in Group Work.

Stephen Shiring head-and-shoulders portrait on a light-brown background

Distinguished Faculty Award for Service
Stephen Shiring, Department of Management
In his 26 years on the IUP faculty, Stephen Shiring spent more than half as chair of the Hospitality Management Department, guiding two curriculum revisions and two departmental name changes and securing $300,000 in external funding. He has served on external department faculty tenure and evaluation committees, on the Student Cooperative Association Board for five terms, on advisory boards for the Academy of Culinary Arts and the Department of Food and Nutrition, and as an advisor to the Greek community. Following a restructuring at the university, he was elected this spring as assistant chair of the Management Department.

Learn more about this year’s Senate Award recipients.

NEW FACULTY, DEANS, AND ASSOCIATE DEAN EMERITI

The following recently retired faculty members and academic administrators are being honored this year with emeritus/emerita status:

Faculty
Madeline Paternostro Bayles, Kinesiology, Health, and Sport Science, 25 years

Holly Boda-Sutton, Theatre, Dance, and Performance, 26 years

Christian Dickinson, Music, 35 years

Joseph Domaracki, Communication Disorders, Special Education, and Disability Services, 29 years

Wendy Elcesser, Madia Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Physics, and Engineering, 30 years

Ajawad Haija, Madia Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Physics, and Engineering, 20 years

Kathleen Hanrahan, Criminology and Criminal Justice, 31 years

Robert Hinrichsen, Biology, 22 years

Michael Kingan, Music, 17 years

Muhammad Numan, Madia Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Physics, and Engineering, 33 years

Carl Rahkonen, IUP Libraries, 33 years

Sue Rieg, Professional Studies in Education, 19 years

Teresa Shellenbarger, Nursing and Allied Health Professions, 26 years

Gail Wilson, Communications Media, 34 years

Deans
Robert Camp, Eberly College of Business, 33 years

Deanne Snavely, Kopchick College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, 9 years

Associate Dean
Cynthia Strittmatter, Eberly College of Business, 37 years

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