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Photo by Tim Fitzgerald
From left,
Harmon D. Maher Jr., Pamela Specht, Julie Masters, Chris Allen, Doug
Paterson, Carolyn Gascoigne, Christopher Decker, Stuart Bernstein, Paul
Barnes and Association Chairman of the Board Adrian Minks.
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Ninth Alumni Teaching Awards issued
The UNO Alumni Association
presented its ninth annual Alumni Outstanding Teaching Awards to nine faculty
members at the Faculty Honors Convocation Breakfast April 14.
Adrian Minks, Association
chairman of the board, presented the awards, established in 1997 to honor
distinguished teaching in the classroom. Peer committees in each college chose
award recipients (listed below), each of whom receives a $1,000 award. Minks
presented each recipient with a commemorative plaque during the convocation
breakfast.
Since the program's founding in 1997 the UNO Alumni Association
has issued $77,000 in Alumni Outstanding Teaching Awards.
The 2005 UNO Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award
recipients:
Chris
W. Allen, College of Arts & Sciences; School of Communication.
Paul
E. Barnes, College of Education; Counseling.
Stuart
P. Bernstein, College of Engineering and Technology; Construction Systems.
Christopher
S. Decker, Ph.D., College of Business Administration; Economics.
Carolyn
Gascoigne, Ph.D., College of Arts & Sciences; Foreign Languages.
Harmon
D. Maher Jr. , College of Arts & Sciences; Geography and Geology.
Julie
L. Masters, Ph.D., College of Public Affairs and Community Service;
Gerontology.
Dr.
Douglas L. Paterson, College of Fine Arts; Theatre.
Pamela
S. Specht, Ph.D., College of Information Science and Technology;
Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis.
2005 AOTA Recipients
College
of Arts & Sciences, School of Communication
Chris Allen teaches broadcast
journalism in the School of Communication. He is the executive producer of the
weekly live newscast, The Omaha News,
produced by School of Communication students. This year, students in that class
have teamed with Omaha South High School to produce stories from the Project
Omaha program. Allen also teaches the School's International Communication
course and each spring takes the students to London for two weeks to study
media industries there. Allen currently is heading a project to create
e-portfolios for School of Communication students. Allen received BA (1979) and
MS degrees (1987) from Iowa State University and his Ph.D. from the University
of Missouri (1996).
College of Education, Counseling
Paul Barnes' work is
centered on the preparation of professional counselors who earn credentials to
work in schools and agency counseling clinics, and on college campuses. In
association with his teaching activities, Barnes coordinates the secondary
school counseling program. In his teaching he emphasizes the effective use of
technology in the counseling profession, infuses new service-learning
opportunities in career development courses, and is a leader in the use of
digital portfolios for school counselor candidates. Barnes is a UNO graduate,
earning a master's degree in 1995. He also holds a BS (1988) and Ph.D. (2000)
from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
College of Engineering and
Technology, Construction Systems
Stuart Bernstein
teaches subjects such as estimating, scheduling, equipment and methods, and an
advanced estimating class (a senior seminar/project. He most enjoys his
Personnel and Supervisory Methods class where he discusses topics on
motivation, teamwork, leadership, communication and organization behavior. The
class includes a community service project, uses role-playing and other
experiential exercises, is writing-intensive and relies heavily on open
classroom discussion. Bernstein also focuses on educating high school students,
faculty and administrators about the many opportunities available in the
construction field and about the benefits of receiving a higher education in
construction. He also strives to recruit regional and national industry
partners to hire his graduates. Bernstein earned a BA (1997) from Syracuse
University and an MS (1999) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Christopher S. Decker, Ph.D.
College of Business
Administration, Economics
Christopher Decker
teaches Managerial Economics in the graduate program and Principles of
Microeconomics in the undergraduate program. His other teaching interests
include industrial organization and environmental and natural resource
economics. Decker's research interests include environmental and energy
economics, industrial organization, regional economics, land use economics,
forecasting and economic history. His work has been published in the Journal of Law and Economics, Ecological Economics, Contemporary Economic Policy, Growth and Change, Journal of Economic Research, and the Eastern Economic Journal. He is a member of several economics
associations. Decker
has a BA (1989) from the University of Maine, an MA (1991) from Boston College
and a Ph.D. (2000) from Indiana University.
Carolyn Gascoigne, Ph.D.
College of Arts & Sciences,
Foreign Languages
Gascoigne's teaching
focus is the French language: structure, conversation and composition. Her
teaching and research interests converge in the realm of second language
acquisition, where she is concerned with improving the language
teaching-learning process. Gascoigne also serves as chair of the department of
foreign languages. She earned a BA (1991) from Michigan State University, an MA
(1993) from Bowling Green State University and a Ph.D. (1997) from Florida
State University.
Harmon D. Maher Jr.
College of Arts &
Sciences, Geography and Geology
Maher has taught
geology in the department of geography and geology since 1983. His expertise is
in plate tectonics and structural geology. He especially enjoys working with
students in the field, and has taken students on field trips to Iceland,
Ireland and various locations in the United States. Undergraduate student
research projects he directed include work by students on five summer
expeditions to Spitsbergen, Norway, and work on faults and related structures
at Toadstool Geologic Park in northwest Nebraska. He also is involved in
outreach to the community on geoscience issues and is a coauthor of the Roadside Geology of Nebraska. Maher has
a BS (1977) from the State University of New York-Albany, an MS (1979) from the
University of South Carolina and a Ph.D. (1984) from the University of
Wisconsin.
Julie L. Masters, Ph.D.
College of Public Affairs and Community Service,
Gerontology
Masters teaches
undergraduate courses on the Lincoln campus for the UNO department of
gerontology. In addition, she is responsible for the promotion of aging courses
on the UNL campus for students interested in pursuing a certificate in
gerontology. Her research interests include pedagogical techniques for teaching
about aging and death and dying. She also is involved in evaluating the
effectiveness of a voucher program for caregivers providing support in the home
to a person with Alzheimer's disease. This evaluation is being done in
cooperation with the Nebraska State Unit on Aging, the Eastern Nebraska Office
on Aging, and the Midlands Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. Master's is
a UNO graduate, earning a BA in psychology in 1984. She also has an MA (1985)
from the University of Northern Colorado and a Ph.D. (1997) from the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Dr. Douglas L.
Paterson
College of Fine Arts, Theatre
Paterson's primary
focus is theatre and social change. He founded the Theatre and Social Change
area in the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the Pedagogy and
Theatre of the Oppressed (PTO) conference. In Los Angeles in May 2005 PTO will
sponsor its 11th annual gathering. He has given numerous workshops regionally,
nationally and internationally in the techniques of Augusto Boal's Theatre of
the Oppressed, during the last four years traveling to Israel/Palestine, Iraq
and Liberia Africa. He will return to Liberia this May for follow-up workshops.
Paterson also heads the UNO Department of Theatre's core academic offerings,
teaching Theatre History and Literature as well as Research Methods, theory and
related scholarly courses. Paterson earned a BA (1968) from Yankton College and
an MA (1970) and Ph.D. (1972) from Cornell University.
Pamela S. Specht, Ph.D.
College of Information
Science and Technology, Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis
Pamela Specht has
served in numerous roles in her 25 years with UNO, including chairman of the
management department, associate dean, and interim dean in the College of
Business Administration (CBA). She has been significantly involved in graduate
programming, directing the EMBA, MBA, and more recently the MS in MIS in the
College of IS&T. Specht has led additional curriculum development efforts,
such as a Ph.D .in Information Technology for CBA and the Nursing
Administration and Pharmacy Administration degrees for UNMC. She also had a
major impact on
undergraduate
programming, serving as chairman of numerous College of IS&T
and campus-wide committees. She chaired for the
university president a system-wide Task Force on the Economic Impact of the
University. She is the recipient of three CBA Faculty Achievement Awards in
Teaching and Research. She has been a prolific grant writer, obtaining funding
for more than 15 research and teaching projects. Finally, Specht has supervised
more than 55 independent study students, chaired or served on more than 20
theses and 10 PhD dissertation committees, and has 38 refereed publications,
including seven pedagogical studies. Specht has a BS (1967) from the University
of Wisconsin, an M.Ed. (1970) from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D.
(1981) from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
