Nine retiring faculty conferred emeritus status

Nine members of the University faculty were granted emeritus status by the board of trustees.

Emeritus status is conferred in recognition of distinguished service to the University. To be designated as emeritus, individuals must have been at the University for at least 10 years and been recommended by their department for the designation. The recommendation then proceeds to the respective dean, the vice president for academic affairs and to the Honorary Degrees and Commemoratives Committee, before going to the trustees.

Designated as emeriti faculty were:

Alice Calderonello, English, who retired July 1. She joined the faculty in 1973 and provided leadership in developing the general studies writing program and a writing-in-the-classroom program for faculty. In 1990 she was honored by the College of Arts and Sciences with a Distinguished Educator Award for these efforts as well as for establishing a strong doctoral emphasis on rhetoric and composition. Promoted to professor in 1983, she served as director of graduate studies in English from 1984-88 and as acting director of the Women’s Studies from 1996-97. The author of six books and monographs, she was co-chair of the English department from 1996-97. Her University service includes being a member of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee and chair of Arts and Sciences Council. Calderonello has also been very involved with student mentoring and community service programs. She coordinated several literacy projects at two central city schools in Toledo.

Christopher Geist, popular culture, who retired July 1. He taught at BGSU since 1977 and was promoted to professor in 1990. He was chair of the department from 1993-97, when he also served as director of the Bowling Green Center for Popular Culture Studies. He later served as interim chair from 1992-93 and again from 2001-02, and, in spring 2001, as interim associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. An expert in the ways in which American history is conveyed to the public, he has also written extensively about the South and about aspects of television. He co-edited the Directory of Popular Culture Collections in 1989.

Dawn Glanz, art, retired June 1. An associate professor of art history specializing in American art, she published How the West Was Drawn: American Art and the Settling of the Frontier in 1982. Glanz has held several leadership positions since coming to BGSU in 1978, including interim director of the School of Art in 1995, assistant dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1990, and director of American culture studies in 1997. She also held a joint appointment in Women’s Studies. Glanz received several recognitions from the Medici Circle as well as Il Magnifico Awards in 1981, 1985 and 1990 for scholarship, teaching and service to the school.

Joseph Gray, German, Russian and East Asian languages, who retired July 1 after 33 years with BGSU. Gray served as chair of the department for 16 years, during which time he oversaw the addition of Japanese and Chinese to the curriculum and the initiation of the unique, two-year master’s degree in German in which American students spend their first year of study with the Bowling Green program at the University of Salzburg. He was also the initiator of BGSU summer workshops for high school German teachers, and recently obtained a grant to provide a summer-abroad experience for area high school students.

John Hayden, mathematics and statistics, who retired June 1. Hayden came to BGSU in 1970 and was promoted to professor in 1983. He had been a member of the graduate faculty since the 1970s and, during the 1980s, served on Graduate Council. He was also a visiting associate professor at Michigan State University, from 1975-76, and at California Institute of Technology, from 1980-81. A specialist in finite group theory and combinatorial design theory and coding theory, he was chair of the department from 1995-99. Hayden’s University service includes membership on the University Program for Academic Success Advisory Council from 2001-03, Faculty Senate from 2000-03, and the Committee on Committees, from 2001-02.

Charles Holland, Distinguished Research Professor of mathematics and statistics, who retired May 16. He came to the University in 1971 to help start the doctoral program in mathematics. An internationally recognized expert in the “ordered groups” area of algebra, he discovered a theorem when he was 26 that provided the basis for much future work in the area by mathematicians worldwide. His teaching ability was twice recognized with Outstanding Teacher Awards given by the campus chapter of Kappa Mu Epsilon mathematics honor society. Holland has been the research director of 21 Ph.D students, including 13 at BGSU. He was also a longtime member of the Logarhythms, a campus barbershop quartet.

Donald Scherer, philosophy, who retired May 16. A member of the philosophy department since 1967, Scherer became a full professor in 1975. In the 1970s he was involved in a groundbreaking project that united television and philosophy to explore various themes related to liberation, medical ethics and the environment. He later used video to revamp the teaching of the required basic logic course for students in philosophy. He was also the longtime coordinator of the Ohio High School Philosophy Contest, sponsored by BGSU, which awarded scholarships to students writing about ethics. Over the course of his career, Scherer’s efforts were instrumental in moving the philosophy department to become the premier program in applied philosophy. Scherer has long been a leader in environmental ethics, publishing extensively on the subject and working at BGSU in support of sustainable development. He intends to remain active with graduate students and in his work on environmental ethics and sustainable development.

Larry Smith, English (BGSU Firelands Humanities, with a joint appointment to the College of Arts and Sciences), who retired Dec. 31, 2002. A poet, fiction writer, biographer, essayist and reviewer, Smith joined the Firelands faculty in 1970 and became director of the Firelands Writing Center in 1978. In the early 1980s he was promoted to full professor. The publisher of Bottom Dog Press, headquartered at the college, he also edited The Plough: North Central Review and was managing editor of The Heartlands Today magazine. Smith has championed the life stories of working people, particularly in the Ohio Valley. His numerous books include Steel Valley: Postcards and Letters, Milldust and Roses: Memoirs, Beyond Rust and Awash with Roses: Collected Love Poems of Kenneth Patchen, which Smith edited with his daughter, Laura. In 1988 he received an Ohioiana Award Citation for his support of poetry in Ohio. In 2001, essays by some of his students on working class literature, along with Smith’s syllabus, were included in What We Hold in Common: An Introduction to Working Class Studies, published by The Feminist Press at City University of New York. His most recent project is an audio CD, “Songs of the Woodcutter: Zen Poems of Wang Wei and Taigu Ryokan,” read by Smith with flute by Monte Page, released this year by Bottom Dog Press.

Jong Sik Yoon, biological sciences, who retired June 1. A geneticist and evolutionary biologist, Yoon directed the National Drosophilia Species Resources Center, the largest facility of its kind in the world, when it was transferred to Bowling Green from Texas in 1982. Yoon’s research concerned the evolution of chromosomes in drosophilia. He examined such topics as the effects of pollutants on chromosome reproduction and the relationship between cell mutation and cancer. In 1981, he hosted the first scientist from the People’s Republic of China to visit an Ohio university and the following year he traveled to China for research and to help set up a drosophilia lab there.