Faculty authors, distinguished professors and inventors the focus of ‘Recognizing Excellence Week’

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5-7-09

CORALLIS, Ore. – The second-annual “Recognizing Excellence” week at Oregon State University kicks off on May 11 with a half-day of events focused on faculty researchers, their inventions and commercializing OSU innovations for the marketplace.

Other events during the week will celebrate OSU faculty authors and recognize distinguished professors and OSU members of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Sciences. It’s all part of an ongoing effort to acknowledge publicly the innovation, creativity and scholarship at work year round in OSU laboratories and classrooms.

“OSU has long been Oregon’s leading research university, with more federally supported projects than all of the state’s other non-health science campuses combined,” said John Cassady, OSU vice president of research. “The outcomes of that scientific work are increasingly recognized for their excellence, as are the literary contributions of our faculty, who publish dozens of acclaimed books each year. ‘Recognizing Excellence’ gives us the opportunity to celebrate all of that success and make it more prominent for individuals and audiences both on campus and off.”

The week’s schedule of events includes:

• A display of new books by OSU Authors that debuts in the lobby of the Valley Library at 7:30 a.m. on Monday, May 11, and remains up for the rest of the month.

• The Innovation Breakfast, which starts at 8:30 a.m. on the 11th, and thedebut Innovation Lecture, which begins at 10:30, featuring The University Funds chief operating officer Patrick Murphy. Both events are scheduled for the LaSells Stewart Center, and while the breakfast is invitation only, the lecture and a networking session scheduled for 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. are free and open to the public.

• The OSU Authors Recognition reception is set for Wednesday, May 13, 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Valley Library Willamette Classrooms. Several authors will read passages from their latest books and discuss their writing process, including Spring Creek Project Program Director Charles Goodrich (“In the Blast Zone: Catastrophe and Renewal on Mount St. Helens”) Distinguished Professor of Philosophy/OSU Writer Laureate Kathleen Dean Moore (“Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge”) and OSU Women Studies Director Susan Shaw (“God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home & Society”).

Also on Wednesday, May 13, OSU’s two newest faculty members to be awarded the title of “distinguished professor,” the university’s highest faculty designation, will deliver the Distinguished Professor Lectures.

• Alan Acock, Distinguished Professor of Family Sciences, will speak on “A Typology of Marital Relationships: An Application of Latent Class Analysis,” beginning at 10 a.m. in the Memorial Union Journey Room.

• Jeffrey McDonnell, Distinguished Professor of Hydrology, will address, “Where Does Water Go When it Rains?” His talk is also set for the MU Journey Room, beginning at 2 p.m.

• In between the two lectures, beginning at noon, is an invitation-only luncheon recognizing OSU’s newest members of the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Sciences: Botany and Plant Pathology professor/Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing director James Carrington (NSF) and Zoology professor Stevan Arnold and courtesy professor of Fisheries Eric Charnov (both AAS).

For a complete schedule of “Recognizing Excellence” events, visit /http://oregonstate.edu/events/excellence.

About Oregon State University: OSU is one of only two U.S. universities designated a land-, sea-, space- and sun-grant institution. OSU is also Oregon’s only university designated in the Carnegie Foundation’s top tier for research institutions, garnering more than 60 percent of the total federal and private research funding in the Oregon University System. Its more than 20,300 students come from all 50 states and more than 80 countries. OSU programs touch every county within Oregon, and its faculty teach and conduct research on issues of national and global importance.

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