Higher Learning
May 7, 2004

Cindy L. Glidden, assistant director of the University Advising and Career Center, has been selected to receive an Academic Advising Summer Institute Scholarship. The institute is sponsored by the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA). Glidden is one of four people honored with this award in a nationwide competition this year. NACADA is an international association of professional advisors, faculty, and administrators working to promote and support quality academic advising in institutions of higher education.

Benjamin Harris, professor of psychology, was awarded a $1,000 grant to support his research using the Bobbs-Merrill manuscript collection at the Lilly Library at Indiana University. Harris is writing a biography of Albert E. Wiggam and the grant will help defray his travel costs and living expenses while in Bloomington.

Paul Kei Matsuda, assistant professor of English, served as a researcher/expert on the presentational component of a series of 27 half-hour classroom videos covering eight different foreign languages. The videos are part of “Teaching Foreign Languages, K-12,” a multi-media library illustrating effective instruction and assessment strategies for teaching foreign languages at the elementary and secondary levels. In addition to the video library, the program includes methodology workshops and online/print resources. “Teaching Foreign Languages, K-12” was created in conjunction with the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and produced by WGBH Education Foundation for Annenberg/CPB.

Lawrence Prelli, associate professor of communication, received this year’s Eastern Communication Association’s Donald H. Ecroyd and Caroline Drummond Ecroyd Teaching Excellence Award. He received the award at the association’s convention in Boston April 24. The Eastern Communication Association was initially established in 1910 and continues as the oldest professional communication association in the United States. The Ecroyd Award is presented annually to recognize excellence in teaching. The recipient must demonstrate a record of employing communication principles as the foundation for constructing pedagogical principles applied in teaching practices. “It is a great honor to be recognized by your colleagues for your teaching and mentoring,” Prelli says. “What makes this award especially meaningful is that many of my former students wrote in support of this nomination, from when I first started at UNH to recent graduates.”

Chris Sohl, assistant director for advising and outreach, University Honors Program, recently received the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) Northeast Region 1 Academic Advising Excellence Award at the NACADA regional conference held in Burlington, Vt.

Gail Stepina, assistant director of advising and undergraduate programs at the Whittemore School, served as the co-chairperson of the 20th anniversary northeast regional conference of the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA).

Douglas Wheeler, professor emeritus of history, received The Order of Liberty medal from the government of Portugal in a ceremony in Lisbon April 26. He was one of several scholars to be recognized for his support of democracy in the country through his writings and actions. This decoration from Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio came a day after the 30th anniversary of the revolution that instituted democracy in the country. Wheeler retired in 2002 after teaching at UNH for more than 35 years. This is the second medal Wheeler has received from the Portuguese government. In 1993 he was awarded the Grand Office of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator.