UW News

June 5, 2008

Etc: Campus news & notes

EMMY EXCELLENCE: UWTV Production, the UW’s television production facility, has earned an Emmy nomination from the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for its outstanding production Inside Access: Daniel’s Story.

The program chronicles a young boy who was born with part of his brain outside his skull.At Seattle Children’s Hospital, a team of surgeons from Children’s, Harborview and UW Medicine sealed the opening to Daniel’s brain to protect him from disease and injury, and gave Daniel a new face.

Producer and writer Charlie Hinckley and editor Kathy Medak of UWTV Production are both nominated for this award. The 45th Annual Northwest Regional Emmy Awards will be given June 7. Daniel’s Story has already been honored with a New York Festivals International Film & Video Competition bronze award.


MUCH-HONORED BOOK: UW Tacoma Professor Michael Honey has received the Robert F. Kennedy Book award for his book documenting the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in Memphis, Tenn.

Honey and his book, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign, were recognized at a ceremony last week in Washington, D.C. Given by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, the award honors books which faithfully and forcefully reflect the late Robert F. Kennedy’s concern for the oppressed and their struggle for justice.

“Robert F. Kennedy urged King to bring the poor to Washington, inspiring his Poor People’s Campaign,” Honey said. “Memphis was part of that effort, and it became his last campaign.”

Going Down Jericho Road also received the Liberty Legacy Award from the Organization of American Historians.


DOCTOR AGAIN: Provost Phyllis Wise received an honorary doctorate last weekend from Swarthmore University, her undergraduate alma mater.


LATINA LEGAL LEADER: Charlene Aguilar, special assistant to the executive vice provost and director of undergraduate education initiatives, has been named to the board of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). MALDEF is the nation’s leading Latino legal organization, and promotes and protects the rights of Latinos through litigation, advocacy, community education and outreach, leadership development, and higher education scholarships.


OCEAN HONORS: Arthur Nowell, dean of the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences, has announced faculty and staff awards for the year. The awards will be presented June 14 as part of the college’s graduation celebration.

The honorees are Bruce Frost, professor of oceanography, distinguished graduate teaching; Kerry Naish, assistant professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, distinguished undergraduate teaching; Andre Punt, professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, distinguished research; and Carolyn Fisher, assistant to the director of oceanography, outstanding staff. The celebration will include speaker Usha Varanasi, science and research director of NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center.


PSYCHOLOGY STARS: The Psychology Department bestowed honors on one professor and a number of graduate students recently. Research Professor John Palmer was honored by the Graduate Program Action Committee with the Davida Teller Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award for outstanding service to, and excellence in, graduate mentorship and training. Graduate students Briana Woods, Jon Howe, Erin Hunter and Hilary Mead were the Graduate Student Service Award recipients. This award honors graduate students who have consistently demonstrated service to the Department of Psychology as a whole and to the graduate student community specifically. And graduate students Jennifer Marsh, Joyce Bittinger, Adria Martig, and Dellanira Valencia-Garcia received the department’s Distinguished Teaching Awards for Graduate Students for outstanding service and excellence in teaching.