Wake Forest Magazine, June 2009 - Past Issues - Wake Forest ...

Howards wins
teaching award
s s o c i at e Pr o -
A f e s s o r o f
Ma t h e m a t i c s Hu g h
Ho w a r d s h a s wo n
t h e Distinguished
Te a c h i n g Aw a r d of
the Southeastern Section of the Mathematical
Association of America, the first Wake Forest
faculty member to win the award.
Howards earned his bachelor’s degree
from Williams College and his doctorate
from the University of California at San
Diego. He began teaching at Wake Forest in
1997 and was named a Sterge Faculty Fellow
in 2003. He won the 2004 Reid-Doyle Prize
for Excellence in Teaching.
Former BB&T CEO joins
business faculty
o h n A. Al l i s o n
J IV, t h e ch a i r -
m a n a n d f o r m e r
CEO o f BB&T
Cor p o r a t i o n , is
joining the faculty of
the Schools of Business
as Distinguished Professor of Practice. He will
work with students to prepare them for the
workforce and to supplement Wake Forest’s
professional development programs.
“Our students will benefit from hearing
John, who is a gifted teacher in the classroom,
but the strongest benefit will be the interactions
and mentoring relationships that will come
from having him as a valued member of
the Wake Forest community,” says Dean of
Business Steve Reinemund.
Allison retired as CEO of BB&T, the
eleventh largest bank in the country, in 2008.
He will remain chairman of the board until the
end of 2009 and on the board thereafter.
Elder Clinic director participates
in UN program
c h o o l of La w Cl i n i c a l Pr o f e s s o r
S Kat e Me w h i n n e y is in Bo n n ,
Ger m a n y, this month participating in an
international program on older adults,
sponsored by the United Nations. The meeting
is to provide the U.N. General Assembly with
independent expert opinion on questions
related to the rights of older persons.
Mewhinney directs the law school’s Elder
Law Clinic. She also developed and taught,
for several years, a course on comparative law
and aging. In 2008, she and Professor Israel
Doron of Haifa University (Israel), co-edited
“The Rights of Older Persons: Collection of
International Documents.”
Faculty promotions announced
i x t e e n fa c u l t y me m b e r s on
S t h e Re y n o l d a Ca m p u s ha v e
r e c e i v e d pr o m o t i o n s , e f f e c t i v e
Jul y 1.
The following tenured associate
professors were promoted to professor:
Jennifer Burg, computer science
David John, computer science
William Fleeson, psychology
Simeon Ilesanmi (JD ᾿05), religion
Allan Louden, communication
Chet Miller, Babcock Graduate
School of Management
Michelle Roehm, Babcock
Graduate School of Management
James Schirillo, psychology
Helga Welsh, political science
Associate professor Jennifer
Collins, School of Law, was promoted
to professor and granted tenure.
The following assistant professors
were promoted to associate professor
with tenure:
Christian Miller, philosophy
Akbar Salam, chemistry
Paul Thacker, anthropology
Researcher deciphers secrets of mammal fossils
n t h r o p o l o g i s t El l e n Mi l l e r,
A a n ex p e r t on th e ev o l u t i o n
o f af r i c a n ma m m a l s , is am o n g th e
s c i e n t i s t s de c i p h e r i n g th e se c r e t s
o f a tr o v e of sm a l l ma m m a l fo s s i l s
discovered in a quarry in Egypt. The
20-million-year-old bones and teeth found
in the Egyptian desert may shed light on the
origins of present-day African wildlife.
Miller is working with University of
Michigan paleontologists Philip Gingerich,
Gregg Gunnell, and William Sanders, and
Ahmed El-Barkooky of Cairo University. After
Gingerich found the fossil site in the area of
Khasm El Raqaba, Miller was asked to study
some of the fossils he found there.
Miller, who also studies fossil remains of
African mammals at another site in Egypt, hopes
the discovery of these bones of small mammals
from the same period will provide missing
pieces of an ancient animal immigrant story.
“For the first time you get a land bridge
between Eurasia and Africa and at that time
you get a whole array of different kinds of
animals that comes flooding into Africa,” Miller
says. “The deposits here preserve the remains
of those animals, the first immigrants from
Eurasia into Africa.”
The small mammals found have clear
relatives in Eurasia, she says. They are also the
likely ancestors of some of Africa’s most iconic
animals such as the zebra, the rhinoceros, the
gazelle, and the giraffe.
—Cheryl Walker, Wake Forest News Service
The following assistant professors were
promoted to associate professor:
Kami Simmons, School of Law
Omari Simmons (᾿96),
School of Law
Associate professor Pat Dickson,
Calloway School of Business and
Accountancy, was granted tenure.
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