Winney Faculty Development Prize Awarded to Faculty Members
Faculty winners Dr. Mark Boulton, Dr. Tobias Gibson, and Dr. Linda Webster are pictured above with Dianne and Ron Winney.
The Ron D. and Dianne B. Winney Faculty Development Prize is a wonderful gift to Westminster College and to the talented members of the faculty who inspire our students on a daily basis. Faculty compete for the funds, with the winning faculty members chosen for their innovative ideas to develop professionally in ways that touch our students’ lives deeply. Each of the next 3 years, the selection committee will award four $4,000 prizes.
This year’s Winney Prize winners are Dr. Jim McRae, Dr. Tobias Gibson, Dr. Mark Boulton, and Dr. Linda Webster. (Pictured above, Dr. Mark Boulton, Dr. Tobias Gibson, Dr. Linda Webster and Dianne and Ron Winney.)
Take a look at what some of the honored faculty are planning, thanks to their prizes:
- J. Baird Callicott and I are finishing the final manuscript for our anthology, Environmental Philosophy in Asian Traditions of Thought, which will be released by SUNY Press in 2014. Part of my award will allow me to hire a student research assistant to facilitate manuscript preparation and indexing for this volume.
- I am writing an article on the normative value of the Japanese bushidō tradition, which I will submit this semester to Philosophy East and West, the top journal in my field. This article will be the basis for a book on bushidō philosophy that is in the early stages of development. Part of my award will allow me to travel and conduct archival research for these projects.
- J. Baird Callicott and I are preparing a prospectus for a new anthology of essays on Japanese environmental philosophy that will be published in both English and Japanese (translated by Toshio Kuwako and Mitsuyo Toyoda). The funds for travel, equipment, and a research assistant will greatly facilitate the timely completion of this project.”
Dr. Webster plans to develop a Tier III service learning course titled “IT in the Organization.” Activities funded as part of this project include:
- Engaging an upper level student in IT research project to develop business continuity/information assurance laboratory activities;
- Attending a conference in Cyber Defense and Disaster Recovery: Distributed Storage;
- Participating in a 5-day on-line training course in Cloud Computing;
- Creating a capstone service learning experience for this course in which students will develop an IT Business Continuity/Information Assurance plan for a local non-profit organization.
Dr. Gibson hopes to attend the National Security Law Institute next summer. The Institute provides advanced training for professors of law and political science who teach or are preparing to teach graduate-level courses in national security law or related subjects requiring a detailed understanding of National Security Law. Dr. Gibson also hopes to write a conference paper on intelligence oversight with a student.
Dr. Boulton’s goal is to produce a book and documentary film detailing the experiences of Beallsville, Ohio, during the Vietnam War. “Beallsville holds the sad distinction of being the town in America with the highest per-capita number of deaths during the Vietnam War, having lost six soldiers out of a population of 475,” said Boulton. “Through oral interviews with surviving family, members of the Beallsville community, and fellow servicemen, I hope to tell both the story of the life and sacrifice of each soldier and the impact of their loss on Beallsville. The dates of the solders’ deaths spanned the duration of the years in which the United States was most heavily engaged in combat, therefore telling their story presents a microcosm of America’s Vietnam experience. Just as significantly, I think that Beallsville’s story offers a unique opportunity to conduct a community study of the domestic impact of the war. Next summer marks the 50th anniversary of the official start of the conflict (August 1964) and Ken Burns’ next major documentary is about the war, so I think there will be a lot of renewed interest in it. I hope that this project contributes to the resulting dialog on the war and its meaning. As part of this project, I plan on taking a couple of students along with me to gain experience of researching and conducting oral histories next summer. I am also hoping to start a travel study course to Vietnam at Westminster, so this is a great way to continue developing my own research and understanding of the war.”
“I am so grateful to Ron and Dianne Winney and to Westminster College for their support in helping make this project a reality,” said Boulton. ” This is the kind of research that makes me love my job, and I can’t wait to see it come to fruition.”
