April 25, 2002-Vol33n26: Five faculty members win Plesur Awards

Five faculty members win Plesur Awards
SA award recognizes winners' commitment to students and quality of teaching

By DONNA LONGENECKER
Reporter Assistant Editor

The undergraduate Student Association has recognized five faculty members for their commitment to students and quality of teaching by awarding them with the 2002 Milton Plesur Excellence in Teaching Award.

The award is named for Plesur, a member of the UB history department faculty who died in 1987. Plesur was a beloved teacher, author and scholar of popular culture and the American presidency whose sense of humor, warmth and erudition captivated students. SA renamed its Excellence in Teaching Awards for Plesur—one of its first recipients—after his death.

This year's recipients, who were honored at a ceremony and reception last Tuesday, are:

Barbara Bono, associate professor of English, who has won her second Plesur award—the first being awarded in 1992-93. Bono also received a SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1989. Her research interests include English Renaissance literature, Elizabethan-Jacobean drama, Shakespeare and the role of women within these genres. From 1988-90, Bono chaired the university-wide Curriculum Committee that reformed undergraduate general education requirements, and from 1995-97, co-chaired the university-wide Sesquicentennial Committee that oversaw the 18-month celebration of UB's 150th birthday. The committee helped to organize all departmental academic programming, including a major academic symposium, "Does the Body Matter," which brought together six major speakers from neuroscience, cognitive science, anthropology and literary studies. She has been the president of the UB chapter of Phi Beta Kappa since 1993.
Rosemary Feal, professor of Spanish and chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, who recently was appointed to serve as executive director of the Modern Languages Association. Feal has published widely in Latin American literature, and is senior consulting editor of Latin American Literary Review and associate editor of Afro-Hispanic Review. She also serves on the editorial boards of Latino Cultural Studies, New Centennial Review and Letras Femeninas. She co-edits the SUNY Press Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture. Feal is a Western New York native.
Maria S. Horne, associate professor of theatre and dance, and founder and director of the International Artistic and Cultural Exchange Program of the Center for Arts. Her two main areas of interest are pedagogy in theater—the "Strasberg Method"—and Ibero-american theater. Her writings have been published in the United States, Latin America, Africa and Europe. Six of her dramatic translations have been professionally produced both in the U.S. and abroad. Her international credits as director, actor, producer, critic, judge and scholar include numerous presentations in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Uruguay and the United States.
Scott Stevens, assistant professor of English, whose scholarly interests are focused on canonical 17th century figures like Milton, Donne and Herbert, as well as the developing field of the "Literature of Encounter"—literature of the period from Columbus's first contact with the New World to the early 18th century. He is working on a book-length study of this particular material, especially as it pertains to North America. A Youngstown native whose mother is an Akwesasne Mohawk and whose grandparents lived for most of his life on the Tuscarora Reservation, Stevens continues his work in Native American studies through the Center for the Americas. He was awarded a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for 2000-01, which allowed him to spend the academic year at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
Judith H. Tamburlin, assistant professor of medical technology, who has worked to develop innovative teaching materials for the science education of normal, visually impaired and learning-disabled students, with an emphasis on a multi-sensory, cooperative, learning-based system. Her research interests include the investigation of genetic/molecular regulation of terminal erythroid differentiation and programmed cell death or apoptosis. Other areas of interest include the development of intraerythrocytic vesicles in individuals with hyposplenism.