2017 Angelo State Faculty Excellence Awards Winners

Badiola, a professor of philosophy, is an innovative instructor who helped create the curriculum for ASU’s Bachelor of Arts in philosophy degree program. She continually develops new courses, sponsors co-curricular student activities and promotes undergraduate student research. By participating in faculty development workshops and incorporating the latest technology in her classroom, she promotes student engagement and provides extensive feedback to her students. She is also reaching students all over campus by incorporating elements of philosophy into the university’s core curriculum. She frequently teaches independent study courses and the philosophy capstone course in addition to her regular course load. Outside the classroom, she sponsors educational films on campus and takes students to philosophy presentations and professional conferences, where they present their research. She also advises the student Philosophy Club and has organized and participated in numerous philosophy forums, debates and presentations on campus, in the community and on various media. The quality of her philosophy program has been acknowledged by the New Mexico-Texas Philosophical Society.

Wongsrichanalai, an assistant professor of history, exemplifies the model of the teacher-scholar. He has developed and taught 10 courses for both his department and the ASU Honors Program and has received outstanding teaching evaluations, all the while remaining committed to his scholarly pursuits. He is co-director of a $99,982 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that funds the project titled “West Texans and the Experience of War: World War I to the Present.” It is a three-year project to collect, preserve, analyze and disseminate the stories of veterans and their families with connections to West Texas. He is also co-director of ASU’s ongoing Great War Commemoration Lecture Series that is funded by a NEH grant and is a component of the Library of America’s “World War I and America” national initiative. He previously co-directed ASU’s grant-funded “Latino Americans: 500 Years of History” project that included a popular lecture series from 2015-16, and he helped coordinate ASU’s incredibly successful Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemoration Lecture Series from 2011-15. In addition to winning prestigious grants and coordinating the corresponding projects, he shares his research at professional conferences and is widely published in historical journals, popular blogs and other media. He has also published two books and is working on a third. His book “Northern Character: College-Educated New Englanders, Honor, Nationalism, and Leadership in the Civil War Era” was published in 2016 and received rave reviews from several Civil War and historical journals.

In addition to the overall winners, four semifinalists in each category received a $500 award. For Excellence in Leadership/Service, the semifinalists were Donna B. Gee, professor of teacher education; Roger M. Jackson, assistant professor of English; John E. Klingemann, associate professor of history; and Heather L. Lehto, assistant professor of geosciences.

Semifinalists for Excellence in Teaching were David A. Faught, associate professor of Spanish; Flor L. Madero, assistant professor of communication; Andrew B. Wallace, professor of physics; and Kristi M. White, professor of athletic training.

For Excellence in Research/Creative Endeavor, the semifinalists were Anthony N. Celso, professor of security studies; Biqing Huang, associate professor of finance; Han-Hung F. Huang, assistant professor of physical therapy; and James W. Ward, associate professor of geology.

Other faculty nominees in the Excellence in Leadership/Service category were Michael T. Griffin, senior instructor in biology; Teresa E. Hack, associate professor of psychology; Teresa L. Huckaby, assistant clinical professor of physical therapy; Richard J. Lawrence, assistant professor of management information systems; Cheryl A. McGaughey, senior instructor in finance; and Raelye N. Self, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction.

Other nominees in the Excellence in Teaching category were Christie L. Adkins, senior instructor in biology; Walter Baranowski, assistant clinical professor of nursing; Charlene D. Bustos, assistant professor of teacher education; Jacob A. Glantz, associate professor of aerospace studies; S. Murat Kara, professor of economics; Sandra K. Pate, assistant professor of management; Veronica D. Snow, assistant clinical professor of kinesiology; Twyla J. Tasker, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction; Jesse Taylor, assistant professor of mathematics; and James F. Villers, assistant clinical professor of physical therapy.

In the Excellence in Research/Creative Endeavor category, the other nominees were Timothy Bonenfant, associate professor of music; Lesley L. Casarez, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction; Drew A. Curtis, assistant professor of psychology; Jordan A. Daniel, assistant professor of kinesiology; Kenneth J. Heineman, professor of history; Jamal G. Husein, professor of economics; Raj Kamalapur, assistant professor of management; Elisabeth-Christine Muelsch, professor of French; Nicholas J. Negovetich, assistant professor of biology; Marva J. Solomon, associate professor of teacher education; and Susan Abernathy Taylor, assistant professor of mathematics.