Faculty and students garner honors in spring semester

Texas State students and faculty members have had a very rewarding 2013 spring semester. They have received numerous awards and accolades during that time, including:

·         Kenneth H. Margerison, professor of history, was named a Piper Professor by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation. Piper professors are chosen for the honor for their devotion to their profession and for contributions to their students and their communities. Margerison is the 20th Texas State professor so honored.

·         Ian Davidson, professor of music, has been named a U.S. Fulbright Scholar and awarded a grant to visit Tumaini University Makumira in Tanzania May 5-26, and again Jan. 1-21, 2014. As a visiting scholar to the university, Davidson will provide compositional, performance and recording experiences for current students through seminars, performances and collaborative projects.

·         Hank Hehmsoth, a composer and jazz performing artist in the Texas State University School of Music, has been selected for a Fulbright Specialists project in Santiago, Chile, this summer. Hehmsoth will conduct master classes of contemporary American jazz in performance and theory at the Pro Jazz Professional Institute. He will also teach commercial arranging and composition for television and film.

·         Department of Physics Assistant Professor Nikoleta Theodoropoulou has been awarded the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award for her work as a researcher, teacher and scholar. Theodoropoulou’s research goal with the $500,000 award, which will extend over five years, is the exploration of new physical phenomena that emerge at the interfaces between different oxides. The successful implementation of the research findings could lay the foundation for a new technology platform based on the interfaces of hybrid materials.

·         Texas State  professors Jesús Francisco de la Teja and Yasmine Beale-Rosano-Rivaya have been named two of the Top 14 Hispanic Professors in Texas by Online Schools Texas. De la Teja is a Regents’ and University Distinguished Professor of history, and his research focuses on the northeastern frontier of Spanish colonial Mexico and Texas through the Republic era. Beale-Rosano-Rivaya is an assistant professor of modern languages and has received the Texas State University Excellence in Teaching Award.

·         Faculty members Susan Beebe, Jiyun Kang and Debra Monroe have been named among the Top 25 Women Professors in Texas by Online Schools Texas. Beebe is a senior lecturer of English and has been awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching. Kang is an assistant professor in the School of Family and Consumer Sciences and was awarded the Teaching Award of Honor from the Texas State Alumni Association. Monroe is a professor of fiction in the Master of Fine Arts program and has been awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching.

·         Cindy Royal, an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is one of 12 U.S. journalists and innovators to have been awarded John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University for the 2013-14 academic year.

·         In an unprecedented first for the College of Liberal Arts, three of its students have been selected for Fulbright grants for the 2013-2014 school year. Elliott Brandsma will travel to Iceland while Jack Mades and Emily Rothbauer will travel to Germany to represent the U.S. and Texas State as they teach and conduct research.

·         Kanika Verma, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography, has been awarded Golden Key Honour Society’s prestigious Graduate Scholar Award. The award, valued at $10,000, supports Golden Key members’ post-baccalaureate study at accredited universities around the world.

·         Four theatre students advanced to the John F. Kennedy Center as national finalists via the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival program, making 2013 the third year in a row that the university’s theatre program has produced at least four Kennedy Center finalists.  Undergraduate Erin Kinkade is one of eight scene design finalists, and undergraduate Natalie Nergaard is one of eight costume design finalists. They both advanced from the regional festival based on their design work for the department’s productions of “Lend Me a Tenor” and “Hair.” Graduate playwriting student Jordan Morille has also advanced, as his one-act play, “Thirty Deep,” competes against four other finalists for the national short play award. Rita Anderson, also a graduate playwriting student, has already been declared the winner of the Ken Ludwig Playwriting Scholarship for best body of work, making this the second straight year that a Texas State student has won that national award.

·         Texas State University students dominated at the 15th Annual National Collegiate Sales Competition, sweeping both the overall graduate division team title. The NCSC, hosted by the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University, was held March 1-4. Nearly 150 college students represented 67 universities at the competition. Undergraduate Mykayla Goodwin placed first individually for Texas State.

·         Amanda Hepner, a senior marketing and management major in the McCoy College of Business Administration, has been named American Marketing Association (AMA) Student Marketer of the Year. Hepner was honored during the 35th Annual AMA International Collegiate Conference in New Orleans, beating out candidates from more than 360 AMA chapters located throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico.