Notable
Awards and achievements of faculty and staff

John T. Casteen III was among four American university presidents invited to attend an Oct. 29 and 30 conference at Harvard with seven counterparts from Chinese institutions. Casteen joined the chief executives from UCLA, Duke, MIT and the Association of American Universities to confer with the presidents of Peking, Nanjing, Zhejiang, Tshinghua, Pudan, Shanghai and Xian Jiaotong universities on issues of concern to educators in both countries. The meeting was arranged and hosted by Harvard president Neil L. Rudenstine after his own visit to China in 1998.

U.Va.'s North Fork Research Park has been recognized by the Garden Club of Virginia for its efforts to preserve the natural landscape, including its effort to transplant some 3,000 native trees on the site. The University was presented the Elizabeth Cabell Dugdale Award, given annually to organizations, foundations or individuals who practice the principles of conservation, at the 41st Annual Conservation Forum of the Garden Club of Virginia in October.

Gary Balian, Mary Muilenburg Stamp Professor of Orthopaedic Research and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, was invited to attend a workshop on Orthopaedic Gene Therapy held Nov. 11 through 14 in Tampa, Fla. The workshop, sponsored by the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons, took stock of the present state of the art and made recommendations for future development of the field. Balian presented a talk on the potential of genetically modified marrow cells for treatment of defects and metastases in bone and moderated a session on stem/progenitor cells.

English professor Rita Felski has been invited to take up a senior research fellowship at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna during the spring of 2000. The institute brings together scholars and intellectuals from Eastern and Western Europe to engage in debate about questions of theory, politics and policy.

The Society for Information Management named Commerce School faculty member Barbara Haley Wixom a winner of the 1999 Paper Awards Competition, which honors achievements of innovative professionals and executives in information systems management and services.

Richard H. Steeves, associate professor of nursing, was recently awarded a Shannon Award by the National Institute of Nursing Research. This two-year, $100,000 grant will enable Steeves and his colleagues to create and pilot an intervention strategy to help family members through the process of bereavement after the loss of a loved one. The project is designed to test whether a group of bereaved people receiving a narrative-based intervention will deal with bereavement more completely than a group receiving normal care.

The Virginia Public Health Association recently selected Doris F. Glick, associate professor of nursing, as the 1999 recipient of its Annual Award for Excellence in Community Health Nursing Education. This award is given to a nurse educator each year who demonstrates outstanding leadership, commitment, support, dedication and advocacy for community health nursing education in Virginia.

Sharon Utz, associate professor of nursing, was recently initiated as a new member of the Virginia Circle of Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honor society. The Virginia Circle includes student, faculty and alumni members and was founded in 1925.

Jeanette Lancaster, Sadie Heath Cabaniss Professor of Nursing and dean of the School of Nursing, recently received a Silver Heart Award in recognition of her contributions to the work of the American Heart Association. This award is given to an individual for sustained involvement, with increasing responsibility and consistent achievement, in the association.

Shelley Huffstutler, assistant professor of nursing, was selected as one of 12 nurse practitioners to participate in the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties' first faculty mentoring program in community health. This program, sponsored by a Helene Fuld Health Trust Grant, focuses on increasing the community content throughout the curriculum of the enrollee's nurse practitioner program.