Notable

Awards and achievements of faculty and staff

Mary V. Hughes, University Landscape Architect, was recently appointed by Gov. Jim Gilmore to the Art and Architectural Review Board, which reviews the acquisition of artwork and the design of buildings and structures for the Commonwealth and advises the governor.

The Biophysical Society recently announced the First Class of Fellows, consisting of 39 distinguished society members honored for their excellence in science and contributions to the expansion of the field of biophysics. Four out of the 39 are from U.Va. They are: Rodney L. Biltonen, professor of biochemistry and pharmacology; Andrew P. Somlyo, Charles Slaughter Professsor and chair of Molecular Physiology and Biology; Avril V. Somlyo, professor of pathology; and Thomas E. Thompson, professor emeritus of biochemistry.

Former undergraduate Cornelius (Neil) Bynum has been appointed interim assistant dean and director of the Luther P. Jackson Cultural Center of the Office of African-American Affairs.

Valerie Hazelton Gregory was recently appointed assistant dean of admission and coordinator of minority recruitment. She was formerly an elementary school teacher and principal.

President John T. Casteen III was recently elected to the Student Loan Marketing Association's (SMLA) board of directors.

Dr. Paul Mintz, associate chair and professor of pathology, professor of internal medicine and director of the Clinical Laboratories and Blood Bank, has been appointed to the newly formed Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee of the Health Care Financing Administration. This committee will make specific recommendations on national coverage decisions to ensure Medicare beneficiaries have access to the latest clinical treatments.

James McBride, director of the Office of Career Planning and Placement, was awarded the A. Isabel Gordon Distinguished Service Award from the Virginia Association of Colleges and Employers. This award is the highest given by the organization.

Alton L. Taylor, Curry School of Education professor and director of the University's summer session, recently received three awards acknowledging his contributions and volunteerism. He received the Raven Faculty Award, the highest honor bestowed by The Raven Society; the Arthur F. Stocker Jr. Faculty Award, given annually by the U.Va. chapter of Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honorary society for which Taylor serves as faculty secretary; and the U.Va. Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa's Distinguished Kappan Award for 1999, for "being an outstanding educator who embodies the highest ethical and professional ideals."

The U.Va. Office of Development was recently selected as the recipient of CASE's 1999 Circle of Excellence in Educational Fund-Raising Award, for the third year in a row.

The School of Nursing's Alumni Association recently announced the winners of the 1999 Innovative Teaching Awards given to support projects or course development activities that promote excellent, innovative and cost-effective teaching methods. They are: Deborah Conway, assistant professor of nursing; Dawn Rigney, assistant professor of nursing; Arlene Keeling, associate professor of nursing and director of the Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program; and Shelley Huffstutler, assistant professor of nursing.

Barbie Selby, documents librarian at the Arthur J. Morris Law Library, recently won the Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award from The Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association for her many years of work in Government Information librarianship. The award recognizes documents librarians who have made significant contributions to the field of state, international, local or federal documents.

Sarah P. Farrell, assistant professor of nursing, and Donna Markey have been selected as Fellows in the Helene Fuld Health Fund Program: Leadership in Nursing Education (LINE). The LINE program's mission is to enhance the leadership skills of both nurse educators and nursing students at the baccalaureate level. Both will attend a week-long training session in San Francisco in November.

Charles Dunkl, professor of mathematics, participated in organizing the International Workshop on Special Functions: Asymptotics, Harmonic Analysis and Mathematical Physics, held in June at City University in Hong Kong. Dunkl also presented a plenary lecture at the Second Workshop on Orthogonal Polynomials in Ballenstedt, Germany, sponsored by the Institute of Biomathematics and Biometry of GSF, the German National Research Center for Environment and Health. He was elected by the SIAM Activity Group on Orthogonal Polynomials and Special Functions as secretary for the term January 1999-December 2001.

Irena Lasiecka, professor of mathematics, delivered 10 lectures on "Mathematical Control Theory of Coupled Systems of Partial Differential Equations" at the NSF-CBMS Conference organized at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in August.