Faculty from the Department of History have received three College of Arts and Sciences awards for 2015.
Stewart Winger received the College Outstanding Teacher Award (Social Sciences). Amy Wood is this year’s recipient of the College Outstanding Researcher Award (Social Sciences). And Ross Kennedy has won the College Outstanding Service Award (Social Sciences).
Stewart Winger
Winger’s student evaluations emphasize the dynamism and rigor of his classes, while peer evaluations recognize him as a source of pedagogical and curricular innovation. Since 2010 Stewart has taught 13 different courses. Two were funded by the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology (CTLT) and the U.S. Department of Education’s Center for Civic Engagement grants, respectively; one included an “international classroom” via videoconferencing with the American University in Cairo; another on Comparative Fundamentalisms was team-taught with Issam Nassar. Stewart’s credentials also include Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) presentations and publications, impressive achievements of students under his mentorship, and of course his indefatigable efforts to impart writing skills among our students. Congratulations to Stewart on this well-deserved honor!
Amy Wood
Wood is a productive researcher, an internationally respected scholar, and a historian whose high quality work has garnered multiple national honors—the Lillian Smith Book Prize, a Choice Outstanding Academic Book designation, SHGAPE’s Best Article Prize—as well as a CAS Excellence Award (pre-tenure). In external letters that supported Wood’s nomination, two prominent colleagues wrote respectively that she is “an uncommonly accomplished young scholar” and “fast becoming one of the most impressive cultural historians at work today.” Congratulations to Amy on this well-deserved recognition!
Ross Kennedy
Since his arrival at Illinois State, Kennedy has carried a heavy departmental service load. Most notably, his work in the Department of History has included painstaking service as director of assessment from 2003–2011 and commendable service as graduate coordinator from 2011–2015. In the latter capacity he oversaw important changes to the M.A./M.S. program, and last year he wrote the only program review in the University that was exempt from having to issue a follow-up report. He serves or has served the college and university as a member of the University Curriculum Committee (UCC) and the College Faculty Status Committee (CFSC). Among his contributions to the profession, Kennedy’s 45 book and manuscript reviews attest to his stature in his field, while his seven public presentations and 27 interviews highlight his outreach to the broader community. Congratulations to Ross!
Humanists in History have now won the Social Sciences category in four out of the last five years. Overall, the Department of History’s 21 major college or university awards since 2010 include approximately (because some categories overlap) eight for service, seven for research, and six for teaching. The figures signify both the excellence of our faculty/staff and the well-rounded nature of our valuable contributions to Illinois State and the profession.
