Tevian Dray

In his 24 years at OSU, Dray has established himself as a leading innovator in teaching mathematics at the university level. A professor in the Department of Mathematics with specializations in mathematical physics and geometry, Dray is particularly interested in shaping pedagogy to meet the special perspectives, expectations, and needs of different academic and professional fields. He is currently the Principal Investigator on two National Science Foundation projects, one designed to improve the curriculum structure of physics education and the other reshaping the way calculus is taught to young scientists. His own teaching has been previously recognized by the Mortar Board Senior Honor Society, the College of Science, and University Honors College students, who voted Dray UHC Outstanding Professor in 2009. During winter term of 2012, Dray taught Vector Calculus II – using his trademark chalkboards and colored chalk – continuing a long history of outstanding contributions to the Honors community. Tevian Dray’s commitment to innovative, cross-disciplinary, and student-centered teaching is the epitome of the qualities of a UHC Eminent Professor.

Skip Rochefort

Rochefort, an associate professor in Chemical Engineering in the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering and the Director of both OSU Precollege Programs and the Center for Outreach in Science and Engineering for Youth (COSEY), has been one of the UHC’s most active faculty partners since he first taught an Honors course in 1997. His research interests encompass all areas of polymer engineering and science, and he has been especially committed to engineering education at high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels. He founded the Summer Experience in Science and Engineering for Youth (SESEY) program in 1997, a one-week research experience for high school girls and ethnic minorities that has served over 600 student participants and employed over 250 undergraduate engineering students as mentors and counselors. Rochefort has also served as the primary thesis mentor for nineteen UHC Senior Theses, more than any other faculty member. His colloquia Plastics for Poets has been a popular mainstay of the UHC curriculum since 1999, and he has also co-taught a new Honors seminar in energy issues for the past two years. For his longstanding and continuing commitment to the UHC and its students, both in the classroom and out, Skip Rochefort is recognized as the 2012 Sandy and Elva Sanders Eminent Professor in the University Honors College.

The UHC Eminent Professor awards are made possible through the generosity of donors, particularly Ruth Beyer and Joseph (Sandy) and Cheryl Sanders. By facilitating and rewarding the contributions of OSU’s top scholars to the Honors curriculum, UHC Eminent Professorships support the continued advancement of the creative, innovative programs the UHC offers high-achieving students at Oregon State University.

First Healthy Habits Day held at Dixon Rec Center
The first annual Healthy Habits Day is here. Come explore what health means to you and the community. Different information about all types of health: mental, physical, emotional, environmental and more will be provided by the OSU campus and the surrounding Corvallis area. The event takes place May 16, and is hosted by Dixon Recreational Center and OSU Community Service Center. Entrance to Healthy Habits Day is free from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. It takes place at the Dixon Recreation Center.

Talk on brain and arousal featured in zoology talk
Dr. Donald Pfaff from Rockefeller University will be coming to give a talk as part of the Zoology Department Seminar Series on May 18 at 3:30 p.m. in ALS 4001. His talk is titled “Waking up the brain: Generalized and specific CNS arousal”.
Pfaff has been a leader for several decades in research exploring how the mammalian brain receives and processes hormonal signals to construct both simple and complex behaviors.

20th century history of oceanography explored at conference
A conference at OSU on May 14-15 will focus on the emergence of oceanography in the mid-20th century as a critically important science. The event coincides with the 50th anniversary of oceanography at OSU.
Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science known for her role in demonstrating scientific consensus on climate change, will give the keynote address, “The Crucial Experiment that Wasn’t: Acoustic Tomography of Ocean Climate,” 4 p.m. May 14, in the Memorial Union Journey Room. The conference is free and open to the public.
The conference, “American Oceanography at Mid-Century,” will examine how oceanography emerged in the 1950s and 1960s as an important discipline. Speakers from several institutions around the country and abroad will present sessions on May 15
Craig Biegel, a scientist from Florida State University, will open the May 15 session with a presentation titled “A Visionary at Work – Wayne V. Burt, the Early Years at Oregon State University,” in which he describes the origins of oceanography at OSU and one of the pioneers who helped establish the nationally recognized program at the university.
The conference is sponsored by the Horning Endowment in the Humanities and the OSU Department of History, and supported by the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences. The conference schedule is available online at: http://oregonstate.edu/cla/history/lectures/horning/conf_08_09.php

Hendricks, who now serves as interim associate provost for International Programs, will receive the 2008 Kleemeier Award Nov. 23 for the impact of his research in the field of aging.

Joe Hendricks, OSU associate provost, earns top gerontological award.

Hendricks introduced the idea of “chaos theory” to social gerontology in the mid-1990s by proposing that aging is not a linear function but an increasingly dynamic one that results in unpredictable change.

“Joe’s work is one of the very few most creative and original contributions in the field,” said Toni Calasani of Virginia Tech in nominating Hendricks for the award.

His work on that and other elements of gerontological research, including reaching out to other sections of the field for more interdisciplinary collaboration, also earned him the 2004 Tibbitts Award from the Association of Gerontology in Higher Education, the highest honor in that field, Calasani said.

Challenges facing the modern study of aging are both socially created and inaccurately biased toward the medical field, Hendricks said.

Medical genetics accounts for only 25 per cent of the factors that determine what happens as people age, he said. Empirical evidence shows that 75 percent of predictions for aging involve social factors, he said.

“Unfortunately, we’ve medicalized everything: a pill for every ill,” he said.

Public policy and social norms affect individuals’ self-concepts, which affect how they age, the OSU sociology professor said. Even the definition of 65 as the threshold of “old age” is a social construct determines the time orientation toward the future for many people.

“Our lifestyles and health status nationwide is near the bottom of the top quartile when it could be at the top,” Hendricks said. “We need to attend to these patterns, to unravel them, to identify the challenges so we can better intervene and improve the lives of people.”

Hendricks will receive his honor in Washington, D.C., where the 7,000-member society is headquartered. Presenting the award lecture this year will be the 2007 winner, Rita B. Effros of UCLA, whose mentor won the Nobel Prize in physiology in 1996.  The Kleemeier Award presentation is regarded as the highpoint of the annual meetings.

“So I’m in pretty good company,” Hendricks quipped. “This is quite something for me.”

Hendricks came to OSU 20 years ago from the University of Kentucky, where he had a joint appointment in the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Medicine.

His textbook, “Aging and Mass Society,” was the first in gerontology geared at upper division classes.

He is especially proud of his work in establishing the Honors College at OSU in 1995. It is one of only 12 degree-granting colleges of its kind in the U.S., and the credentials of its students rank seventh in the U.S. News and World Report listing.

The college has become a “destination for the best and the brightest” in Oregon, including the 20 percent of the enrollment that comes from minority groups in Portland, Hendricks said.

“There’s a real responsibility on us to live up to their expectations because they are investing their futures on us,” he said.

~ by Ed Curtin