University News
CAS Faculty, Students Honored
May 20, 2004
MACOMB, IL - - Several students and faculty in Western Illinois UniversityÂ’s College of Arts and Sciences were honored in the annual awards reception, held in late April.
The 2003-2004 Student Council Honorary Recognition Awards were presented to May 2004 graduates Jennifer Maddox, an English major from Romeoville, and Jason Orris, a physics major from Macomb. Maddox received the humanities award; Orris received the natural sciences and mathematics award. Senior Michelle Fratamico from Wheaton, with a double major in political science and law enforcement and justice administration, received the social sciences award.
Outstanding Faculty Awards were presented to Harold Hart, physics, for teaching; John Mann, English, for research; and Kenneth Mietus, sociology and anthropology, for service.
Hart, who also was honored as a retiree with 35 years at Western, served 20 years as the physics department chair. He often taught a full-time course load in addition to administrative duties, and was praised by students for his unique demonstrations and lecture style. Throughout the past 11 years Hart has secured more than $500,000 of education-related grants to create WesternÂ’s Secondary Physics Instrumentation Laboratory, which has extended the departmentÂ’s teaching role to high school teachers and their classes.
Mann, who is in his 34th year at Western, has written and published extensively over the past decade. One of his first manuscripts, “The Holiness of Light,” was a semifinalist for the American Academy of Poets Walt Whitman Award and the University of Wisconsin Brittingham Poetry Award. During a 2001 sabbatical leave, he began “The Book of Mann,” a 1,500-page collection of persona poems. He has had more than 35 publications in some of the nation’s best periodicals, and he has been awarded an Illinois Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowship and a WIU Foundation Summer Stipend.
Mietus was recognized for his continuing service to the department of sociology and anthropology, the College of Arts and Sciences and the University. He has served on and chaired numerous departmental committees, including the Planning, Advising, Assessment, and Student Recruitment and Retention committees. He has been an active member of the collegeÂ’s curriculum, attraction and retention of students, and the 40th anniversary planning committees. On the University level he has served on nearly all major policy committees and councils.
The awards reception also honored retiring faculty members Charles Weston, 37 years, political science; John Hallwas, 34 years, English; and Hart.
Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
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