Alyson Hagy was the recipient of the High Plains Book Award for the best book of fiction. The award is given to books that examine life on the high plains, which includes Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The award was presented at a ceremony at the Billings campus of Montana State University.
Professor Hagy was honored for her book, Ghosts of Wyoming. She is a graduate of Williams College and holds a master of fine arts degree from the University of Michigan.
Kathleen Enz Finken has been appointed provost at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. She has been serving as provost, vice chancellor for academic affairs, and professor of art history at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Her new appointment is effective in February 2012.
Rose Embly McCoy, a longtime member of the faculty at Jackson State University in Mississippi, died at her daughter’s home in Hampton, Virginia. She was 97 years old.
The Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD) is the nationally recognized authority promoting safety and fostering excellence in the art of violence in theater and film production. The SAFD was founded in the late 1970’s by a male collective working in the entertainment industry. Of the 118 certified teachers of the SAFD in the US, only 19 are women, many of whom teach at colleges and universities across the country. The first female teacher was recently inducted into the College of Fight Masters, the highest ranking position in this organization.
Ingrid Mattson was named the inaugural holder of the London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron University College in London, Ontario. The appointment is effective on July 1, 2012. Dr. Mattson has been serving as director of the MacDonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut.
The Louisiana Community and Technical College System has announced eight candidates who are being considered for chancellor of Baton Rouge Community College. Among the eight candidates are two women.
Andrea Lewis Miller is the chancellor of Southwest Louisiana Technical Community College in Lake Charles. She has held that post for the past four years. Dr. Miller holds a Ph.D. in developmental biology from Atlanta University.
Mary C. Wyatt is vice president for academic affairs at Savannah State University in Georgia. She is a graduate of Virginia State University and holds a master’s degree from Washington State University and a Ph.D. in food and nutrition from Florida State University.
A new book, which was co-authored by three women academics and a male colleague, has won several prestigious awards. The book, 
Lala C. Steelman is a professor of sociology at the University of South Carolina. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. at Emory University.
Catherine Bolzendahl is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California at Irvine. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University.
Claudia Geist is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Utah. She is a graduate of the University of Mannheim in Germany. Dr. Geist earned master’s and Ph.D. degrees in sociology at Indiana University.
Susan Kollin was named Letters and Science Distinguished Professor at Montana State University. She has been on the English department faculty at the university since 1995. Her research and teaching focuses on the literature and film of the American West, environmental issues, and feminist theory.
The University of Michigan has announced that it will award an honorary degree to Nancy Cantor at its winter commencement exercises on December 18.
Katheryne Levis McCormick, a long-time educator and administrator at Rutgers University, died at a retirement community in Bridgewater, New Jersey. She was 88 years old.
The Asian Women’s Leadership University in Malaysia aims to teach a wide cross-section of women from different backgrounds to become leaders in the professions, business, and government. The university hopes to enroll its first students in 2015.
Barbara Liskov, Institute Professor and director of the programming methodology group at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, was awarded the Katayanagi Prize for Research Excellence in Computer Science. The prize, established by an endowed fund set up by Japanese entrepreneur Koh Katayanagi, is administered by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in conjunction with the Tokyo University of Technology. The prize includes a $10,000 cash award.
From time to time, Women in Academia Report will provide links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. We invite subscribers to e-mail us at editor@WIAReport.com with suggestions of articles for inclusion in this feature.
Laurie H. Glimcher, the Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology at the Harvard School of Public Health, who in January will become dean of the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, received the Honorary Lifetime Membership Award, the highest honor bestowed by the International Cytokine Society. The award was presented earlier this week at the joint conference of the International Cytokine Society and the International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research in Florence, Italy.
Renee Hobbs was named the inaugural director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston. Her appointment is effective January 1.
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has given awards to two women academics for their innovative teaching practices.
Karen Tabak, associate professor of accounting and economics at Maryville University in St. Louis, was honored with the 2011 George Krull/Grant Thornton Teaching Innovation Award for using art and drawing to enhance critical thinking skills of students in junior- and senior-level accounting courses.
Lisa A. Pruitt, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, was named as the recipient of the 2011 A. Richard Newton Educator Award from the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. The award will be presented at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Portland on November 11.
Tanja McKay, an associate professor of entomology at Arkansas State University, received the Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching from the Entomological Society of America. She has been on the faculty at Arkansas State since 2004.
Chris Voelz, the former women’s athletic director at the University of Minnesota, was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators.
Martha Andresen, professor emerita of English at Pomona College, received the Crystal Quill Award from the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles. The award is presented to “scholars, patrons, and artists whose work and philanthropy advances appreciation of the immediacy of Shakespeare’s plays.”
Melissa Weintraub, the founding director of Encounter, an educational organization dedicated to providing Jewish diaspora leaders from across the religious and political spectrum with exposure to Palestinian life, was awarded the Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize from Grinnell College in Iowa.
Katharine Shester, assistant professor of economics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, has been awarded the 2011 Allan Nevins Prize for the best dissertation on economic history from the Economic History Association. Her dissertation, completed at Vanderbilt University, was entitled, “American Public Housing’s Origins and Effects.”
The Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg has announced the appointment of two women to its faculty.
Theresa Pancotto was named clinical assistant professor of neurology in the department of small animal clinical sciences. She has been serving as a neurology and neurosurgery resident at the college.
Emily Miller was named assistant professor of surgery in the department of small animal clinical sciences. She was a small animal surgery resident at the veterinary medical center at Iowa State University.
Teachers College, Columbia University has announced that it has extended the contract of President Susan H. Fuhrman for five years. Included in the contract extension is an option for President Fuhrman to serve an additional two years beyond the end of the current contract in 2017. Before assuming the presidency of Teachers College in 2006, Dr. Fuhrman was dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee has added eight new faculty members. Five of the new faculty members are women.
Barbara Boswell has joined the English department faculty and the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia as part of the New Faculty Fellows Program of the American Council of Learned Societies. The program, which is supported by funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, offers recent Ph.D. graduates the opportunity for two-year teaching positions at partnering universities.
Ann Carlson, an internationally respected choreographer, was named a visiting artist at Stanford University’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Last year, Carlson was a visiting artist in the drama department at Stanford.
Charlene Wolf-Hall was named chair of the department of veterinary and microbiological sciences at North Dakota State University. Professor Wolf-Hall joined the university in 1996 as a laboratory technician. She was named an assistant professor in 1997 and was promoted to full professor in 2010.
Karilyn Lesassier Van Oosten was named director of strategic alliances at Chamberlain College of Nursing in Downers Grove, Illinois. She was senior director of enrollment and director of strategic business alliances for the College of Nursing at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix.
Krista Allen is the new associate director of development at Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She was assistant director of development for the university’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Cathy Jones, the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of French at the University of Georgia, was named faculty ombudsperson at the university.
Muriel Hawkins is the new associate vice president for partnerships and engagement at Virginia State University. She was assistant to the president for campus and community relations at Dillard University in New Orleans.
Ann Huff Stevens, chair of the department of economics at the University of California at Davis, was appointed director of the Center for Poverty Research at the university. Professor Stevens has been on the faculty at the university since 2003. She previously taught at Yale University and Rutgers University.
Kristin Rowe was appointed assistant provost for advisement at Berkeley College, which operates four campuses in New York and four campuses in New Jersey. She was campus operating officer for Berkeley’s New York City locations. She has been an administrator for the college since 1999.
Jamie Moffitt was named vice president for finance and administration at the University of Oregon. She has been the executive senior associate director for finance and administration in the university’s department of intercollegiate athletics.
Kate Berry, associate professor of geography at the University of Nevada in Reno, was named director of the Core Curriculum at the university. Dr. Berry has been on the university’s faculty for 18 years.
Judith A. Martin, professor of geography and director of the urban studies program at the University of Minnesota, has died from complications associated with breast cancer.
Caroline Whitson, the 17th president of Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina, has announced that she will step down at the conclusion of this academic year. She has been president of the women’s college since 2001.
Karen Hanson was named provost at the University of Minnesota, effective February 1. Since 2007, she has been serving as provost at Indiana University in Bloomington and executive vice president of the Indiana University system. Dr. Hanson first joined the Indiana University faculty in 1976 as a lecturer in philosophy.
Ӣ 
Beth Ann Malow was named to the Burry Chair in Cognitive Childhood Development. Before joining the faculty at Vanderbilt, she was a tenured associate professor of neurology at the University of Michigan where she was director of the Sleep Medicine Fellowship Program.
Marilyn Friedman is the W. Alton Jones Chair in Philosophy. Professor Friedman studies political philosophy, ethics, and feminist theory. She is the author of 
Celine-Marie Pascale, an associate professor of sociology at American University in Washington, D.C., is currently serving as president of the Language and Society Committee of the International Sociology Association. Her committee is about to launch a new online journal, Language, Discourse & Society. The new journal will be published in French, English, and Spanish.
Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, is now offering a bachelor’s degree program in women’s and gender studies. Previously, students could only pursue a minor in the subject. The new degree program takes an interdisciplinary approach with two required courses and seven electives. Students are encouraged to study abroad and participate in community-service learning experiences.
Alabama State University, the historically black educational institution in Montgomery, received a three-year, $300,000 grant from the Office on Violence Against Women at the U.S. Justice Department. The grant will allow the university to provide programs for students as well as training for counselors, police officers, and healthcare providers. Part of the grant money will be used to fund partnership programs with the local district attorney’s office.
“What in my view is indisputable — given the extraordinary success and satisfaction of Wellesley graduates — is that women’s colleges are a vital and vibrant part of the educational landscape and should be offered to all young women as a choice. I know that our graduates would confirm that single-sex education helped give them confidence and skills to contribute significantly in all arenas.”
From time to time, Women in Academia Report will provide links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. We invite subscribers to e-mail us at editor@WIAReport.com with suggestions of articles for inclusion in this feature.
Marcia Bjornerud, the Walter Schober Professor in Environmental Studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, will receive the 2011 Outstanding Educator Award from the Association of Women Geoscientists at the national meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis on October 10.
Waneen Spirduso, professor emerita of kinesiology and health education at the University of Texas, received the H. Clarke Hetherington Award from the National Academy of Kinesiology. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the academy.