2002 

Laurence Kruckman, for Teaching
Ed Simpson, for Creative Arts
Veronica Watson, for Service
John Zhang, for Research

For Teaching, Laurence Kruckman
In part, through Dr. Kruckman’s efforts to improve teaching and revise the curriculum, the Department of Anthropology was named by the American Anthropological Association as one of the top five undergraduate programs in the nation.

As part of his dedication to teaching Dr. Kruckman has been internship coordinator for over ten years and students have recently been placed in sites as diverse as the White House to an HIV maternal hospital in East Africa, from the Smithsonian to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Dr. Kruckman’s essays and research have appeared in such journals as the American Anthropologist, Social Science and Medicine, and Medical Anthropology. Much of this research has been accomplished with students. Papers have been co-authored with students and appeared at important conferences such as the National Institute of Aging.

His up-to-date classroom modules deal with timely subjects such as Andrea Yates and infanticide, 911 and globalization, patient doctor interaction, and HIV. The website postpartum.net created with IUP students and linked to his classroom modules is the largest and most widely used site on postpartum illness and was recently the  feature of an article in the LA Times. The award winning site is ranked number one by all major search engines.

Dr. Kruckman recently received the teacher of the year award for pedagogy from the IUP Center for Teaching Excellence.

Back to top

For Creative Arts, Ed Simpson
During his 20 years as faculty member of the Department of Theater and Dance, Ed Simpson’s work as a theater artist has included directing more than 30 productions and acting in several roles. But the major focus of his creative endeavors in the last decade—and that which has brought him the widest national exposure and acclaim—has been his ongoing work as a playwright and, most recently, as a screenwriter.

Simpson’s works have been prolific and disparate—but all sharing critical acclaim. In the past five years alone, Simpson has written two full-length plays, a one-act play, and a commissioned stage adaptation of a short story. Simpson has written for the critically acclaimed ABC television program, State of Grace.

His most recent play, Additional Particulars, was premiered by the Occasional Theater in Los Angeles to critical acclaim and received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and the Backstage-West Garland Award for Playwrighting. Additional Particulars received praise from several publications, including the Los Angeles Times and Variety. Another of his recent plays, Elephant Sighs, has also been well received, and is slated for an off-Broadway production in New York City in 2002.

His other full-length plays, The Battle of Shallowford, The Comet of St. Loomis, and A Point of Order, have received numerous successful productions throughout the United States and Canada. They hold the relatively rare distinction of having been published by the firm of Samuel French, Inc., which publishes fewer than two percent of the more than 1,500 scripts they receive each year.

Back to top

For Service, Veronica Watson
“My service tends to gravitate toward areas that stress diversity, interdisciplinary, and the importance of strengthening the communities of which I am a part,” said Dr. Veronica Toombs Watson, who has been a faculty member in the English Department for five years.

For both faculty and for students, Dr. Watson has sought to strengthen communities and to promote diversity within those communities. What makes Dr. Watson’s work impressive is that she does it all: she comes up with the ideas, does the hard work of procuring funding, and then takes the tasks to completion with her extraordinary ability to organize and implement. Her work is an integral part of the State System of Higher Education’s efforts to cultivate diversity.

In 1998, Dr. Watson became coordinator of the then-fledgling Pan African Studies Minor Program, and then became the program’s first director. Under her leadership, the program now has a website and a brochure, and the minor continues to attract students. Because the Pan African Studies Minor spans several disparate disciplines and departments, creating a sense of cohesion and coherence has been no small task. Dr. Watson has been successful in cultivating a sense of community among professors and students in the program through a variety of means, including gathering and disseminating information about African issues, about upcoming conferences, and about grant opportunities. One of the most striking successes of the program has been the addition of a faculty/student exchange program with the University of Zimbabwe, and several IUP students have visited Africa through the PAS program.

Dr. Watson has successfully secured a number of grants that have funded events in honor of Black History Month. She has served the broader community in her role as co-director of the Indiana County Underground Railroad project, and she has worked extensively within the student body to encourage excellence among minority students, and, among other things, has established the Frederick Douglass Junior Scholars program, which supports student mentoring and other activities. Dr. Watson has served on a number of university-wide committees, and has also contributed substantially to the governance of the English Department.

Back to top

For Research, John Zhang
For Dr. John Zhang, who has served in the Mathematics Department since 1995, there is no dilemma between research and teaching, for he views the roles of teacher and scholar as intertwined and mutually beneficial.

“My love of teaching motivates my research,” he said. “My research makes me a more knowledgeable and enthusiastic teacher.” In the past seven years since coming to IUP, he has given 28 presentations and keynote speeches on subjects ranging from theoretical math to the use of statistics in the classroom at international, national, regional and local conferences. He has also published several theoretical statistics research papers.

Dr. Zhang believes that the best research is that which positively impacts people’s lives; this has been the driving force behind his research at IUP.

Trained as a theoretical statistician, his theoretical research has focused on improving statistical methods used by others. His work has included research that refines time series models, as well as formulating new statistical selection procedures that help other researchers to choose the best of alternative statistical approaches. Much of his research has focused on exploring different ways of teaching statistics, and using his analysis to find the methods to enhance teaching this challenging subject and to more fully involve students in the learning process.

Dr. Zhang is probably best known to the community for his efforts to promote research, particularly in his role as coordinator of the IUP Applied Research Lab.

Back to top