faculty achievements

OUTSTANDING PROFESSORS WIN FELLOWSHIPS IN ANCIENT LITERATURE AND MODERN ISLAM

Spring 2004, three Carroll professors announced their receipt of National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships for advanced summer studies. The NEH has granted funding to Professor of Philosophy Barry Ferst, Professor of Political Science Philip Wittman and Professor of English Ron Stottlemyer, the Chair of Carroll’s Department of Languages and Literature.

Under their NEH fellowships, Drs. Ferst and Wittman have been selected to attend a NEH Summer Institute entitled, "Diversity and Debates in Contemporary Islam," a six-week program held at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Institute will explore the diversity and unity of Islam and the perception that Muslims subscribe to a single set of ideas and practices.

This marks Wittman’s second NEH grant. In 1994, he participated at the NEH seminar, "The Democratic Experience in Japan," at the University of Pittsburgh. Wittman is also a Fulbright Scholar who has pursued study programs and travel in India, Colombia, Germany, Hungary and Poland.

For Ferst, this summer constitutes his second institute on Islam. In 2002, he received an NEH grant to research Islam at the University of Chicago. Much of Ferst’s recent academic work has been directed toward fashioning a course in the history and philosophy of Islam for Carroll as part of the college’s new emphasis on global diversity courses. Since 9/11, he has organized and sponsored the yearly Islam in America lecture series, which brings to Carroll acclaimed Islamic scholars and speakers to offer insights into Muslim culture, politics, history and faith.

Dr. Stottlemyer’s NEH fellowship will take him to Trinity College, Cambridge University, England, this summer to participate in the Anglo-Saxon England Summer Institute for College Teachers. A specialist in medieval women’s studies and medieval mystics, Stottlemyer has achieved extensive expertise in Old English, Middle English and Old Norse language and literature, which he will develop as one of the NEH Summer Institute’s 25 select fellows from around the world.

This is Stottlemyer’s second NEH award. In 1997, he was selected for the NEH Summer Institute on the Literary Traditions of Medieval Women held at Rice University. His 1997 NEH experience culminated in this spring’s publication of the book, Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (University of Toronto Press, 2004), a collection of essays, including Stottlemyer’s chapter entitled, “The Construction of the Desiring Subject in Hrotsvit’s Pelagius and Agnes.” Including Stottlemyer, fifteen of the book’s sixteen contributors participated in the 1997 NEH summer institute.

DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR

LOREN GRAHAM, 2004 CARROLL COLLEGE DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR

This spring , Associate Professor of English Loren Graham of Carroll’s Department of Languages and Literature was awarded a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), located near Sweet Briar College in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills. During summer 2004, he will join 20 other VCCA Fellows focusing on their own creative projects at this working retreat for visual artists, writers and composers. The VCCA is one of the nation’s largest year-round artists’ communities and its fellows enjoy worldwide attention and prestigious awards, including Pulitzer Prizes, MacArthur grants, Guggenheim fellowships, National Endowment for the Arts awards, National Book Awards, Academy Award nominations and other accolades. The author of Mose and the forthcoming book, The Ring Scar, Graham plans to work on his fiction and poetry at the VCCA this summer.

For Graham, winner of Carroll’s 2004 Distinguished Scholar Award, this marks the third time in three years that he has been selected for VCCA. During this academic year, eight of Graham’s poems were published or accepted for publication in poetry journals, including Tar River Poetry, Spoon River Poetry Review, Westview and the Alabama Literary Review. In February 2004, Graham was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry. The "Pushcart Prize, Best of the Small Presses" is the leading best American writing anthology in the U.S. and reprints fiction and poetry published during the previous year in literary magazines from across the country. Nomination is by editors of magazines, and inclusion in the anthology is a high honor. This is the fifth time (and the fourth year in a row) that Graham’s work has been nominated. In addition, his poem, “The Dwelling,” was accepted for the anthology 20 on 20: Contemporary Poets Respond to a Sonnet of Shakespeare’s, William Thompson ed.

OUTSTANDING TEACHING AWARD

GRANT HOKIT, 2004 CARROLL COLLEGE OUTSTANDING TEACHING AWARD
Professor of Biology Dr. Grant Hokit’s nomination for the 2004 Outstanding Teaching Award was supported by copious testimonials from a grateful Carroll community. Some of the testimonials averred how, as a teacher, mentor and scientist, Hokit maintains an open and respectful rapport with both students and colleagues. Some testimonials stressed how Hokit is beloved by students because of his commitment to and honest interest in them and because of his passion in the classroom. Others focused on his unassuming demeanor, wisdom and generous spirit. Students have praised Hokit for his gracious gestures: as one example, he brings food, sodas and moral support to his biology students working long hours into the night at the lab.

Hokit’s passion for teaching is also embodied in the outstanding student research he has cultivated for his biology students. He has developed an original investigation of Montana ecosystems and amphibian life in Montana’s mountain watersheds. Each summer, with his 3-4 Carroll student researchers hiking with him into the backcountry, Hokit has studied how habitat patterns across Montana influence the distribution of amphibians and how mining waste has affected amphibian life in Montana wetlands. With permeable skin allowing pollutants to invade their bodies, amphibians make an excellent indicator species to gauge environmental quality. Hokit’s amphibian project will produce the most detailed survey of its kind ever produced and shed light on the effects of pollution on living creatures.

In addition to his classroom teaching and Montana field research programs for students, Hokit has developed an interdisciplinary study abroad program that yearly takes students to Belize to learn about its natural environment, archeology and anthropology. This year’s Belize journey included 19 Carroll students, who witnessed the diversity of the country’s tropical forests and coral reefs, the human destruction of both systems and the survival challenges faced by people living in a developing country.

Hokit has been granted a sabbatical for the 2004-2005 academic year, when he will perform research and professional development in biology.