Finest faculty are recognized at annual ceremony

Faculty Senate celebrated the achievements of some of the University’s finest faculty and programs at its annual Faculty Recognition Luncheon on April 14.

Capping a rich, 33-year career at BGSU, Tom Klein, Chapman Learning Community, received the Lifetime Achievement Award. On campus and in national education publications, Klein’s name is synonymous with engaging students through innovative community structure.

“His indefatigable pursuit of enhancing student success by supporting the juncture of learning with collaboration has made its mark not only on the BGSU learning community but also on the national reform for liberal arts education,” his nominators wrote.

Klein has been instrumental in creating many of Bowling Green’s most groundbreaking programs and classes. He created the Great Ideas course, from which sprang a general education requirement, and the Holocaust curriculum, which has been adopted by many area schools. The culmination of his vision of an integrated, holistic curriculum for students was the founding seven years ago of Chapman Living/Learning Community. Chapman “serves as a model for other universities that aspire to recapture the best notions of a scholarly community,” a nominator wrote.

The award is given to a senior faculty member for outstanding contributions to BGSU and whose teaching, scholarly work, service and administrative skills have contributed greatly to the vitality of the BGSU community.

• Steven Lab, director of the Criminal Justice Program, received the Chair/School Director Leadership Award. Lab has been director of the Criminal Justice Program since 1987. When the program was recently moved into the Department of Human Services, he was also appointed chair of that department, in addition to serving as interim associate dean of the College of Health and Human Services.
As director, Lab has overseen and developed the addition in 2001 of a master’s degree to the criminal justice program, and has worked to hire and retain top-quality faculty for the program. He also brought added visibility to Bowling Green when he was elected president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, a prominent national organization.

• Paul Haas, Distinguished Teaching Professor of economics, was presented the Community Involvement Award for his leadership in the health sector. Haas served for many years as an officer in the local hemophilia chapter, and was instrumental in establishing a hemophilia treatment center at Toledo Hospital and securing state funding for the Ohio Hemophilia Program. He was among the initial appointees to the program’s advisory committee and worked to achieve treatment standards and an interdisciplinary approach to hemophilia management. He chairs the Education Committee of the National Hemophilia Foundation, of which he has also served on the board of directors.

He is also a longtime member of the Western Lake Erie Region of the American Red Cross and is the only non-medical member of the Medical Advisory Committee. In addition, he has served on the board of United Health Services and on the Blood Products Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration. He is currently a member of the Blood Safety and Availability Committee for the Department of Health and Human Services and is the economist for the master’s of public health program jointly offered by BGSU, Medical College of Ohio and the University of Toledo.

• Molly Laflin, family and consumer sciences, received the Faculty Mentor Award. Her nominators praised her thoughtful and concerned efforts for their welfare. She helps junior faculty learn the culture and structure of the University, coaching them on effective grant writing, curriculum design and many other aspects of academia, devoting much time and energy to assisting them. She has “willingly and enthusiastically reached out to several other untenured faculty members” in the school, a nominator wrote. “More importantly, though,” another wrote, “she has offered the broad intellectual and emotional support that is the hallmark of a true mentoring relationship.”

• The Higher Education and Student Affairs Division of the School of Leadership and Policy Studies in the College of Education and Human Development was chosen for the Unit Award for excellence.

Highly regarded within the profession, the master’s program in college student personnel and the doctoral program in higher education have been rated first and second in the nation by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. Faculty and graduate students from these programs serve in a number of important ways around the University such as on committees and as providers of professional development opportunities for student affairs staff. Graduate students from the division “provide critical services and programs to students,” a nominator wrote, and serve as adjunct faculty for UNIV 100 and 131 courses as well as advisers for more than 30 student organizations.

“Perhaps most importantly,” another nominator wrote, “HESA faculty have shaped the campus culture at large (Vision and Values, BGX, graduate student placements in 34 programs on and off campus, for example) so that BGSU is a place where educational innovation thrives.”