Athens, Ga. – Six University of Georgia faculty and staff members were honored by the UGA Office of International Education at its annual Faculty/Staff Awards reception held earlier this month. This annual event honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the university’s internationalization. It also recognizes the many faculty and staff across campus who advance international education through their instruction, research, service, and through administrative and logistical support.
The honorees and their recognitions are as follows:
Dan Colley, director of UGA’s Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, was presented 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 his/her career and who has made major contributions to the internationalization of the university. The award is given in honor of 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. This work has been supported by many financial resources, most notably a $18.7 million grant from the Gates Foundation which funds a consortium of investigators around the world in efforts to integrate schistosomiasis control. 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.
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 UGA 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.
Tina Harris, department of communication studies in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, was the recipient of the inaugural International Diversity Award, which is jointly conferred by the OIE and the Office of Institutional Diversity. The International Diversity 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.
Promoting issue of diversity in her scholarship and teaching, Harris expanded the reach of her work to study abroad by designing and directing a program titled “International Perspectives on Interracial Communication” in 2008 at UGA Costa Rica. The program involves non-traditional approaches that challenge students to critically engage with the racial and ethnic diversity in Costa Rica. This include 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. Through these activities, students discuss, learn, reflect on, write about and engage in dialog with each other and with Costa Rican colleagues. This course, now in its fifth year, provides a model of how to engage diversity issues from an international perspective.
Vicki McMaken, assistant director of Global Programs for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Science, 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 is presented in honor of 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.
Among McMaken’s many responsibilities is to welcome 100 or more incoming international students, scholars and scientists who study, research or visit the university each year.
Two additional awards were presented during the ceremony. John Maltese, School of Public and International Affairs, received the Friend of UGA at Oxford Award, and Nate Nibbelink, the Warnell School of Forestry, was awarded the Costa Rica Adelante Award.
The State Botanical Garden of Georgia and T.W. Lord and Associates helped sponsor the ceremony.
For more information about the OIE, see http://international.uga.edu.
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