WRITER: Steven Elliott-Gower, (706) 542-6206, segower@uga.edu
CONTACT: Steven Elliott-Gower, (706) 542-6206, segower@uga.edu
Jere Morehead, (706) 542-6908, morehead@uga.edu
UGA FOUNDATION FELLOWS PROGRAM APPOINTS NEW FACULTY MENTORS
ATHENS, Ga. - Three University of Georgia faculty members have been
named Senior Faculty Fellows for the Foundation Fellows program, the university's
premier undergraduate scholarship program.
Rebecca White, David Williams and Judith Willis have begun four-year
terms, serving as mentors and role models to the students in the fellowship.
They join a
group of nine other Senior Faculty Fellows who represent a range of
academic disciplines from the humanities to the sciences. "Our Senior Faculty
Fellows come
from a variety of disciplines to meet the needs of our students," said
Steven Elliott-Gower, associate director of the Honors and Foundation Fellows
programs.
"They are chosen on the basis of their nationally recognized scholarship
and their demonstrated interest in undergraduate education."
White, who joined the UGA law faculty in 1989, became the second woman
to hold an endowed chair at the law school when she was named J. Alton
Hosch
Professor in 1999. In 2000, she received the Josiah Meigs Award, UGA's
highest honor for teaching excellence. She has been selected by law graduates
five times
as the recipient of the Faculty Book Award for Excellence in Teaching
and has also received the John C. O'Byrne Award for Contributions Furthering
Student/Faculty Relations. She served as a UGA Senior Teaching Fellow
in 2000-01 and was inducted into UGA's Teaching Academy. She specializes
in the areas
of labor law, employment discrimination, employment law and labor arbitration.
Williams is head of the religion department where he conducts research
and teaches Hellenistic, Rabbinic and Modern Judaism and Hebrew. He has
won numerous
teaching awards at UGA, including the Sandy Beaver Award for Excellence
in Teaching and the Richard B. Russell Undergraduate Teaching Award. He
is also one
of the eight UGA Senior Teaching Fellows and was inducted into the
UGA Teaching Academy in 2001. Williams is on the editorial board of Shofar:
An
Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies and is the past president
of the Midwest Jewish Studies Association.
Willis is a professor of cell biology specializing in the hormonal control
of insect metamorphosis, the regulation of cuticular protein genes and
the development of a
cell culture model for studying metamorphosis. She is on the editorial
boards of Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Journal of
Insect
Physiology. During her distinguished career, Willis has served as director
of the Cellular Physiology Program at the National Science Foundation,
director of the
Honors Biology Curriculum at the University of Illinois and, most recently,
as a member of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellowship
Panel on
Cell Biology and Immunology. She has conducted research at Harvard,
Oxford and Cambridge universities, and at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.
Willis
is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"It is a great pleasure to welcome Professors White, Williams and Willis
to the Foundation Fellows Program," said Jere Morehead, associate provost
and director of
the Honors and Foundation Fellows programs. "They are all first-class
scholars who have a great deal to offer our students as they make their
way through college
and develop plans for the future." The Senior Faculty Fellows are assigned
four to eight students and generally meet with them as a group once a semester,
then
follow up with individual contacts. Many Senior Faculty Fellows have
previous involvement with the Foundation Fellows Program through their
participation in
dinner seminars, travel-study programs or the practice interviews that
the fellowship organizes for students competing for major post-graduate
scholarships.
White, Williams and Willis succeed Betty Jean Craige, Ed Larson and
Tom Polk, who have served as Senior Faculty Fellows since the mid-1990s.
The Foundation
Fellows Program was established in 1972 by the trustees of the University
of Georgia Foundation and is supported by a $46 million endowment. Currently,
there
are 92 students in the fellowship. More information on the program
can be found online at www.uga.edu/honors/fellows.
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