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3 Faculty Members Receive Awards
(Posted: April 18, 2008) (Printable Version)
Three faculty members at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith have received awards in recognition of their efforts in the classroom.
Recipients are John Martini of Fort Smith, the Master Teacher Award; Dr. Rebecca Mroczek-Williamson of Van Buren, the Lucille Speakman Excellence Award; and Dr. Michael Looper of Greenwood, the Luella M. Krehbiel Award.
John Martini
Martini, an assistant professor of electronics technology, is also the director for River Valley BEST and Frontier Trails BEST robotics competitions and serves as a board member and policy and procedure chair of BEST Robotics Inc.
Martini is also active in the National Association of Industrial Technology (NAIT), where he has been a member since 2000, is division president of the NAIT Community College and Technical Institute, and is a member of the NAIT Executive Committee. He is also an advisory committee member for the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority (STEM).
At UA Fort Smith, he is a member of the Academic Integrity Committee, a member of the Student Task Force and is faculty adviser for the Baptist Collegiate Ministry. He has served for six years as chair of the Electronics Advisory Committee at UA Fort Smith.
Martini’s background includes eight years in facility management experience in health care, 18 years maintenance management experience in health care and 30 years military training and experience in the United States Air Force and the Air National Guard. He retired in 2005 as a lieutenant colonel after 18 years military officer experience and four years military commander experience.
He has an Associate of Applied Science degree from UA Fort Smith when it was Westark Community College, a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies from the University of Oklahoma and a master’s degree in management from Webster University.
The recipient of the Master Teacher Award receives a monetary award of $2,000.
Rebecca Mroczek-Williamson
Dr. Mroczek-Williamson, who came to UA Fort Smith in 2003 as an assistant professor in the science department, was hired to develop and teach three upper-level courses required for the newly created bachelor’s degree in biology. Two were upper-level lab courses, one in genetics and one in cell and molecular biology. The third was a non-lab course in evolutionary biology.
Dr. Mroczek-Williamson was the initial faculty adviser for both the biology and biology with teacher licensure degrees and now shares those responsibilities with others in the department. She has worked with local high-school science teachers through a summer workshop supported by a No Child Left Behind grant.
Dr. Mroczek-Williamson was an invited speaker at Trinity Episcopal Church, where she talked about evolution and stem-cell research. She is an annual moderator for the regional Math-Science Quiz Bowl.
She received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Boston University in 1997 and her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 2003, where she studied the molecular genetics of an abnormal chromosome in maize.
The Speakman Award is named for a longtime teacher, administrator and Board of Trustees member, the late Lucille Speakman. Recipients receive a $1,000 monetary award and a $2,000 equipment allocation.
Mike Looper
Dr. Looper, a research scientist with the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, has been teaching anatomy and physiology courses as a member of the adjunct faculty at UA Fort Smith since 2004. He also serves as an adjunct professor and is on the graduate faculty of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Dr. Looper has authored or coauthored more than 150 scientific publications on various topics ranging from animal physiology to food safety, including “E. coli O157:H7.” He reviews scientific manuscripts for several peer-reviewed research journals and serves as associate editor of the “Journal of Animal Science.”
Dr. Looper has been invited to serve as a panel reviewer for the 1890 Institution Teaching and Research Capacity Building Grants Program in Washington, D.C., for the past four years.
He earned a master’s degree in animal science at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and a Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from Oklahoma State University. Prior to being employed with the USDA, Dr. Looper was on the faculty at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.
The Krehbiel Award recognizes contributions of UA Fort Smith’s part-time faculty. The award is named for Luella M. Krehbiel, who taught English and literature at the university from 1929 through 1958. The recipient receives a cash award of $1,000.
Martini, Mroczek-Williamson and Looper were recognized during a faculty appreciation ceremony held April 18 in conjunction with UA Fort Smith’s first Undergraduate Research Symposium. In addition to these faculty awards, separate award categories recognize the work of non-teaching professionals. The non-faculty awards are scheduled for later announcement.
| Article by: Sondra LaMar, Director of Public Relations |
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