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K-State Today

February 6, 2012

College of Arts and Sciences announces winners of Faculty Enhancement Program funds

Submitted by Beth Montelone

The College of Arts and Sciences has established a Faculty Enhancement Program to increase the numbers and proportion of faculty members engaging in research, scholarship and creative activities, particularly those with the potential for garnering extramural funding and recognition. The program emphasizes enhancing opportunities for faculty in those disciplines that have not historically enjoyed access to substantial start-up or extramural funding opportunities.

 

Tenure-earning faculty members within three years of hire were eligible to apply for funding for summer salary and research support. Applicants were expected to identify a particular project culminating in a work product that would enhance their research capabilities, such as a book or national grant proposal. The funding provided by the program will be complemented by mentoring from a senior colleague at K-State or elsewhere, in addition to group activities among the awardees.

 

The inaugural competition for the Faculty Enhancement Program was recently completed. Twenty-three applications were peer-reviewed and 15 faculty members were selected for the initial cohort. The awardees are Soo-Hye Han and Jennifer Vellenga, both assistant professors of communication studies; Leilei Shen, instructor of economics; Daniel Hoyt, Katherine Karlin, Kara Northway and Joe Sutliff Sanders, all assistant professors of English; Nathan Albin and Sarah Reznikoff, both assistant professors of mathematics; Laura Kanost, assistant professor of modern languages; David Pickering, assistant professor of music; Nora Bello, Kun Chen and Juan Du, all assistant professors of statistics; and Matthew Sanderson, assistant professor of sociology, anthropology and social work.

 

“While we are in the midst of strategic planning at the college and department level, we recognized that we had a unique opportunity to provide some critical investments to begin to make progress on the thematic goals of K-State 2025," said Peter Dorhout, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "Equally as important, we combined the financial investment with a commitment to mentoring junior faculty who will help us build a top 50 research university.”

 

Special thanks to the peer review team, Professors Joe Aistrup, Bruce Glymour, Beth Montelone and David Stone, who committed time and talents to this program as well as provided feedback to the faculty who were not selected, Dorhout said.