3/27/2006
Contact: K.E. Schwab -- 724-738-2199;
e-mail: karl.schwab@sru.edu
SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY TO HONOR SCHOLARSHIP,
ACADEMIC SUCCESS
AT HONORS CONVOCATION; PRESENT HONORARY
DOCTORATE TO MARVIN HAMLISCH
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa.
– And the 2006 recipient of the President’s Award for
Excellence in Teaching at Slippery Rock University goes to Dr. Eva
Tsuquiashi-Daddesio, an 18-year member of the modern languages and
cultures department which will be presented when the university
honors more than 2,200 students for their academic accomplishments
and achievements at the annual Academic Honors Convocation April
2.
The ceremony is
expected to draw more than 2,000 family members, friends and
honorees and will be held at 2 p.m. in Morrow Field House. The
assembly will include an address from Lauren Plesko, a graduating
senior from Lower Burrell and holder of the highest grade-point
average in her graduating class 4.0 on 129 hours of credit. Plesko
will receive her bachelor of fine arts degree with a second major
in dance at May’s commencement.
The two-hour
ceremony will see presentation of a honorary doctor of humane
letters to Marvin Hamlisch, best known locally as the principal
pops conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the
presentation of the President’s Award for Excellence for
Scholarly and Creative Achievement to three honorees:
* Dr. Cornelius Cosgrove, professor and chair of
SRU’s English department, and Dr. Nancy Barta-Smith,
professor of English for their combined work in the publication of
“In Search of Eloquence: Cross-Disciplinary Conversations on
the Role of Writing in Undergraduate Education,” and
by
* Dr. Michael J. Zieg, assistant professor
of geography, geology and the environment for his paper “The
Sudbury Igneous Complex: Viscous emulsion differentiation of a
superheated impact sheet” published in the Geology Society of
America Bulletin.
The annual
convocation, led by SRU President Dr. Robert M. Smith, also honors
SRU’s scholarship recipient students, the university’s
Presidential Scholars, those named to the 2004-05 spring semester
and 2005-06 fall semester dean’s lists, along with students
who have earned scholar athlete honors. The ceremony salutes those
recognized as service-learning scholars and is held as part of
SRU’s Honors Month, and includes the annual presentation of
the President’s Award for Outstanding Service which this year
goes to Tracy Allison, coordinator in the Office of Annual
Giving.
Plesko
Plesko, a member of
SRU’s Honors Program, is a three-year Presidential Scholar
Award holder and the 2002 recipient of the Martha Gault Art
Scholarship. In addition, she has twice received the Craig A.
Succop Metalsmithing Scholarship and is a recipient of the 2004
Glenn Bell Scholarship. Her art work has been displayed at SRU, and
she has performed at Tthe Attack Theatre Studio in Pittsburgh and
with the recent “Slippery Rock Dance in Concert with the
Three Rivers Jazz Orchestra” event at Butler County Community
College. She began her dance career at age 3 and includes ballet,
tap, jazz, lyrical, modern, pointe and Riverdance among her
talents.
She was a member of
Phi Eta Sigma, the freshman honorary as well as Golden Key
International Honors Society, Phi Sigma Pi, national honor
fraternity, the Martha Gault Art Society and has completed numerous
volunteer projects at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh,
the I Care House in New Castle and with the Relay for Life programs
at SRU and in New Kensington. She was a member of the Rocklettes
Drill Team in 2002-03, and at SRU, she has worked with the Summer
Arts Academy. She has also served as a dance teacher in private
studio work.
Tsuquiashi-Daddessio
Tsuquiashi-Daddessio joined the
faculty in 1988 and now serves as chair. She was nominated for the
award by both faculty and students who repeatedly cited her caring
nature, understanding and teaching ability to help students
understand other cultures in the world as it increasingly becomes
more diversified.
She
was called out by one nominator who wrote, “Not only does she
pack her day full with teaching French and Spanish classes, she
also goes that extra mile to help her students understand and
succeed…her whole period is very interactive and promotes
discussion on all topics.”
She was cited for
involving herself in the lives of her students, serving as an
adviser who listens and helps in scheduling to help meet her
student’s needs. In addition she was cited for her work as
adviser to the French honorary, Pi Delta Phi, the SRU French Club,
known as “Le Cercle Francais,” and for her work in
sponsoring language and culture events related to the University
and community.
Tsuquiashi-Daddesio
holds her doctorate in French with a Spanish minor from the
University of Minnesota. In addition, she has a maitrise de letters
modernes in comparative literature from the Universite de la
Sorbonne Nouvell in Paris and holds a license es letters from the
Sorbonne. She was named department chair last year and has
previously served as academic coordinator for international studies
at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict in
Minnesota, where she also taught French and Spanish for four
years.
The author of
numerous publications and papers, she has secured thousands of
dollars in grants for her department, including one to improve
video holdings and another to help upgrade the language laboratory
in Carruth Rizza Hall. She is obviously fluent in French, Spanish
and English, and is also fluent in basic Italian, Japanese and
German.
In a personal note,
she explains, “I consider myself a born teacher. I became
committed to teaching as a vocation at an early age, and I began
teaching what I knew to others at an early age.”
Hamlisch
Over the past dozen
years, SRU’s music department has been privileged to include
more than 75 choir students in the “College All-Star
Chorus” which performs in Heinz Hall with the Pittsburgh
Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Hamlisch. During those
years, he has come to call SRU his “favorite” and often
uses the choir’s on-stage time to joke and tease SRU
students. The bond that has developed resulted in his recent
appearance in a one-man, sold-out show as part of SRU’s ING
Performing Art Series and the university’s admiration of his
outstanding abilities as a respected American composer and
conductor has prompted its decision to present him with an honorary
doctor of humane letters degree.
Hamlisch’s life in
music is notable for its great versatility as well as substance. As
composer, he has won every major award: three Oscars, four Grammys,
four Emmys, one Tony and three Golden Globe awards. His
groundbreaking show “A Chorus Line,” received the
Pulitzer Prize. Among the Broadway shows Hamlisch has composed are
“They’re Playing Our Song,” “The Goodbye
Girl,” “Sweet Smell of Success” and
“Imaginary Friends.” He is the composer of more than 40
motion picture scores, including his Oscar-winning score and song
for “The Way We Were” and his adaptation of Scott
Joplin's music for “The Sting,” for which he received a
third Oscar. His prolific output of scores for films includes
original compositions and/or musical adaptations for
“Sophie’s Choice,” “Ordinary People,”
“The Swimmer,” “Three Men and a
Baby,” “Ice Castles,” “Take the Money
and Run,” “Bananas” and “Save the
Tiger.”
Hamlisch holds the
position of principal pops conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra as well as with the National Symphony Orchestra in
Washington, D.C., the first time any one has held such positions
with either orchestra. In addition he serves as conductor with the
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
He was
musical director and arranger of Barbra Streisand’s 1994
concert tour of the United States and England as well as the
television special “Barbra Streisand: The Concert” (for
which he received two of his Emmys). He served in the same
capacities for her millennium concerts. Hamlisch is a graduate of
both Juilliard and Queens College
Cosgrove and Barta-Smith
The shared award
for scholarly and creative achievement cited the work of Cosgrove
and Barta-Smith salutes their 262-page book published in 2004 by
Hampton Press, Inc., for offering its argument for the value of
face-to-face conversations between composition specialists and
professors within other disciplines. Their work calls for achieving
both development of an ordinary language that can be used while
faculty members across disciplines together consider the role of
writing in undergraduate education and as a means of shared
learning among conversants that can benefit students in
composition, professional writing and major program courses. It
also serves as a discovery of possibilities for mutual assistance
while seeking to enhance undergraduate teaching and to design
curriculum for both general studies and major programs.
Cosgrove, who
joined the SRU faculty in 1987; Barta-Smith in 1995. The two
combined their efforts, drawing heavily from both their reading and
years of experience teaching first-year composition as well as from
sources in the English department’s professional writing
program as part of their book research. Primary sources for much of
the book were interviews conduced with colleagues from other
academic fields within SRU.
Zieg
Zieg’s work
in geology has attracted national and international attention with
his paper discussing the origins of one of the world’s
largest and most valuable nickel and copper deposits uncovered by
his research explaining the 1.85-billion-year-old Sudbury impact
crater in northern Canada. The 20-mile deep crater was formed when
a meteorite slammed into the earth and the discovery has attracted
attention in geology circles around the world. After five years of
study, Zieg realized the layering in the Sudbury complex, with its
dramatic layering in which roughly one mile of granitic rocks
overlie 3/4 mile of basaltic rock, was produced entirely in the
liquid state immediately after the meteorite impact. His work adds
new insight into the formation of rocks at the site that has
captivated geologists for 100 years.
Zieg, who
joined the SRU faculty in 2003, determined that like oil and water,
nickel and copper settled independently to the bottom of the crater
floor and that the melt sheet mechanically segregated into two
distinct compositional layers before crystallization began. This
process had not previously been recognized, or even considered.
Zieg studied the Sudbury impact crater for his doctoral
dissertation at Johns Hopkins University. His undergraduate degree
is from Michigan State University.
His discovery has
been cited as “stellar” with a nomination noting it has
“caused a sensation across the globe. In a subject fraught
with dissension and controversy, this paper has been praised by the
best and most hardcore researchers as a milestone contribution. It
has woven together at both very detailed and quantitative levels
all the available science, combined with his own work, to not only
fully explain this occurrence, but his work has predictive
qualities that point the way where additional breakthroughs are
likely to be made…Michael Zieg has made a stir throughout
the world, and it has been a universally pleasant reaction. His
work has both solved a long-standing mystery and has broken new and
cutting-edge ground. This is truly unprecedented in this highly
competitive field.”
Allison
Allison will
be presented the outstanding service award primarily for her
positive attitude of optimism and enthusiasm that resulted after
taking over the operation and increasing alumni support for the
project.
Allison
joined the university in 1989 and stepped up to lead this
year’s Annual Fund/Phonathon Program when her supervisor was
given another assignment. In a nomination letter, it was noted her
work had resulted in a smooth transition with the division
“overwhelming impressed by the success and innovation she
brought to the program in a short period.”
Under
her leadership, pledges increased by 34 percent, the average gift
to the university increased from $27 to $38 and credit card gifts
nearly doubled. All are regarded as key indicators of success for
the gift program which also saw a midyear increase in alumni
participation. She was credited for reviewing current practices and
making use of an outside consultant to develop new policies and
procedures expected to have long-term impact – in addition to
the immediate success – on improving the giving program.
Allison initiated a strategic student recruitment effort that
resulted in more and better qualified Phonathon caller candidates
and she extended training, revised the script and revamped the
incentives while at the same time establishing a consistent
expectation from student callers.
As part
of her work, Allison has shown an ability to work well with people
throughout the university, including alumni, students,
administrators, faculty and technical staff.
The
annual award, open to SRU employees and those closely associated
with the university, was established by the late Mr. and Mrs.
Robert McMullen, both long-time University supporters. Mr. McMullen
was a 1951 SRU graduate and was deeply involved in creating the
Slippery Rock University Foundation, Inc. The award continues
through the generosity of their son and daughter-in-law, Doug and
Linda McMullen.
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