The Office of International Education has recognized six faculty and staff members who advance international education at UGA through instruction, research, service, and administrative and logistical support. Honorees are:
• Dan Colley, director of UGA’s Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, received the Richard Reiff Internationalization Award. UGA’s top recognition for contributions to internationalization, this award is presented to a faculty member who has engaged in global activities throughout their career and who has made major contributions to the internationalization of the university. The award honors Richard F. Reiff, who served as the director and executive director of international education at UGA for 31 years.
Throughout his career, Colley has made contributions to biomedical research in global public health. He is best known for his work on the prevention and control of schistosomiasis, a disease that is prevalent in many parts of Africa and Asia and caused by a parasite. Colley’s many international awards and accolades come from governments and professional societies around the world.
Colley’s work has provided UGA researchers and students opportunities to study and research abroad. His program integrates lab work with international field studies, underscoring the university’s global research mission.
• Tina Harris, a faculty member in department of communication studies in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, received the inaugural International Diversity Award, jointly conferred by the OIE and the Office of Institutional Diversity. The award recognizes a faculty or staff member who has shown dedication to promoting diversity as part of UGA’s internationalization. This includes recruiting students from underrepresented populations for study abroad; educating international students about U.S. cultural, ethnic, religious or other forms of diversity; increasing the inclusion of students with disabilities in a variety of international activities; and bringing attention to international and comparative aspects of courses or co-curricular activities devoted to diversity.
Harris expanded the reach of her work to study abroad by designing and directing the program “International Perspectives on Interracial Communication” in 2008 at UGA Costa Rica. The program includes service-learning projects, round table discussions and guest lectures, all of which provide students with the opportunity to engage with Costa Ricans of all backgrounds—white, indigenous, mestizo and Afro-Caribbean. This course, now in its fifth year, provides a model of how to engage diversity issues from an international perspective.
• Andy Herod received the OIE Study Abroad Award, which honors a faculty or staff member who has made major contributions to advancement in UGA’s study-abroad efforts.
Herod is a Distinguished Research Professor in the department of geography and director of the UGA à Paris program, which he established 10 years ago with the late Chris Allen from the School of Public and International Affairs. Herod also has taught in other study-abroad programs, including Australia, New Zealand, Oxford, Tanzania, Avignon and Croatia.
Herod has helped identify and work with bureaucratic hurdles faced by study-abroad directors. In addition, he has served on numerous OIE committees and has advised and mentored several UGA study-abroad directors.
• Vicki McMaken, assistant director of Global Programs for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, received the Mary Ann Kelley Open Arms Award. This award honors UGA faculty or staff who have gone above and beyond their formal duties in facilitating the presence of international students and/or scholars at UGA. The award honors Mary Ann Kelley, who played a leadership role in the International Student and Scholars and Immigration Services unit through the years and worked tirelessly on behalf of international students, scholars and faculty.
McMaken helps to welcome 100 or more incoming international students, scholars and scientists who study, conduct research or visit the university each year.
Two additional awards were presented during the ceremony. John Maltese in the School of Public and International Affairs received the Friend of UGA at Oxford Award, and Nate Nibbelink in the Warnell School of Forestry, was awarded the Costa Rica Adelante Award.