Regents Recognize Teaching & Research Excellence

Fri., May 25

The Board of Regents for Higher Education has named the recipients of the Board of Regents/Connecticut State University Research and Teaching awards, which recognize the exceptional research and teaching by faculty at Central, Eastern, Southern and Western Connecticut State Universities. Eight outstanding tenure-track or tenured assistant and associate professors across the four universities were acknowledged as University-Level award recipients and two of the eight - an associate professor of history at Central and an associate professor of environmental earth science at Eastern - were named System-Level award recipients.

"It's a pleasure to honor these outstanding faculty members across our universities," said Board of Regents Chairman Lewis J. Robinson. "Their commitment to our students, and to their craft, should be commended, and I'm pleased that they have chosen to teach at one of our four universities."

The system-level winner of the BOR/CSU Norton Mezvinsky Research Award was Leah S. Glaser, Associate Professor of History, Central Connecticut State University.

Southern's university-level award recipient was Valerie A. Andrushko, associate professor of anthropology (left). Through her research, Dr. Andrushko learns about the diverse ways in which ancient people confronted everyday challenges and how their bones act as a record of these activities. Her research and teaching are inextricably linked as she involves students in research at home and abroad - studying prehistoric and historic skeletons from Connecticut and in Peru. She has written nine peer-reviewed articles, two book chapters, nine research grants, made 16 conference presentations and 16 invited university lectures. Her research has received significant attention for its new insights on the ancient Incas and was part of a NOVA documentary "Ghosts of Machu Picchu" in 2010. Articles describing her work have appeared on Science News, National Geographic and Discovery Channel websites, magazines and newspapers.
 
The system-level winner of the BOR/CSU Teaching Award was Peter A. Drzewiecki, Associate Professor of Environmental Earth Science, Eastern Connecticut State University
 
Southern's university-level award recipient was Deborah A. Carroll, associate professor of psychology (right). Dr. Carroll works to foster a positive learning environment by communicating specific learning goals for each week, encouraging student questions and providing written feedback on all assignments. She adapts her teaching strategies to meet the learning needs of the students currently in her classroom, and students work in pairs to find solutions to problems. She created a psychopharmacology course to study the use of drugs as therapeutic agents for mental illness and the abuse of drugs. Students are required to design novel solutions for practical problems like developing a new drug for a hypothetical disorder. Dr. Carroll -- who is also the director of the B.S. Psychology Research Specialization -- teaches a capstone course where students gain valuable experience and skills and supervise students in field practice. She recently submitted a program revision to include a required capstone lab or field practicum experience that was approved by the University Curriculum Forum.