• The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy and three U.Va. faculty members were among the awardees of National Endowment for the Humanities grants announced recently.

The VFH received $10,000 to help plan a May 2002 conference on "Ireland Reimagined."

Maurie McInnis, an assistant professor of art history, was one of three faculty members who received NEH fellowships. She is working on an upcoming book that explores how slave holders in Charleston, S.C., employed classicism to enforce control when necessary and to articulate the distinctions of class and race in the face of increasing outside scrutiny.

Patricia Wattenmaker, an associate professor of anthropology, received a fellowship to finance an eight-month sabbatical while she finishes a book on early cities of upper Mesopotamia. The project is based upon her excavations of a site in southeastern Turkey and other nearby digs.

Finally, Ira Bashkow, an assistant professor of anthropology, also received a fellowship to develop his doctoral dissertation into a book. The project examines the Papua, New Guinea cultural perspective of white men and the West.

• Curry School professor Martha Snell was invited to serve as an outside evaluator for Kuwait University's Educational Psychology Department in its College of Education. Snell evaluated a proposed special education teacher training program, the first of its kind in the Middle Eastern nation.

• Environmental sciences professor and chair James Galloway gave the plenary address at the 6th International Conference on Acidic Deposition, held Dec. 10-16 in Tsukuba, Japan. After his address, "The Acidification of the World: Nature and Human," he met with the Emperor and Empress of Japan, and later led two sessions.

• David R. Handy, a supervisor in the Housing Division's lock shop, was recognized as the division's Employee of the Year at its annual awards ceremony. He was credited with developing and implementing a new division-wide system.