College of Arts and Sciences Interim Dean Leslie Durham recognized four deserving faculty members during the spring college meeting as winners of the 2018-19 faculty honors and awards.
The college honors and awards committee, comprised of 16 members from 16 COAS departments, reviewed multiple entries and selected the following four faculty members.
Pictured are Lisa McClain, Daniel Fologea (top); Jennifer Pierce with Geosciences chair Jim McNamara, Isam Ali (bottom)
Faculty Excellence Award Recipients:
- Lisa McClain, History
- Daniel Fologea, Physics
- Jennifer Pierce, Geosciences
Adjunct Faculty Excellence Award Recipient:
- Isam Ali, World Languages
About the Winners
Interim Dean Durham commended each award winner as well as presented them with a plaque and honorarium. Below are the committee members comments about each winners:
Dr. Lisa McClain, Department of History
Lisa McClain has been awarded the Faculty Excellence Award because her research, teaching, and service provide voice to perspectives that have traditionally been silenced from women and religious minorities to LGBT and transgender people. She has expertly blended her teaching, research and service activities.
Among the consistent themes of Dr. McClain’s intellectual work is the idea of integrating the voices of those who have traditionally been left out of the historical record. For instance, gender is an important aspect of every course, but with the understanding that everyone has a gender and it does not always fit conveniently into two boxes. For example, in HIST 306: Bonfires and Bells, she gives voice to people with disabilities, homeless people, and people who engaged in homosexual acts or who expressed unconventional gender identities.
As a researcher in gender studies, she served as PI on a $750,000 3-year Department of Justice grant to address issues of violence against women with disabilities. This resulted in collaboration between Boise State, the Idaho Coalition against Sexual and Domestic Violence, and the State Independent Living Council.
She has written two single-authored books, nearly a dozen refereed journal articles and book chapters, dozens of book reviews, and manuscript reviews. She used her position to advocate for social justice on campus, locally, regionally, and nationally. She implemented a Training in Transgender Issues as part of her role on the Idaho Safe Schools Coalition. Dr. McClain served as director of Gender Studies for nine years and then transitioned to graduate coordinator in History. As Graduate Coordinator, she served on 18 completed MA committees and had an impact on the program’s success.
There is no clear line between where her teaching and mentoring stops and her service and research begin. Dr. McClain has accomplished an outstanding and sustained record of excellence.
Dr. Daniel Fologea, Department of Physics
Daniel Fologea excels in all three areas of teaching, research, and service, but what stands out about him is the way he creates an inspired whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. His classes are dynamic and highly interactive. He was the first faculty member to incorporate service learning into his research courses, so that his students learn not only how to carry out research, but also how to share it with the public. He created new courses to boost the mathematics literacy and success rates of graduate students lacking strong calculus backgrounds.
Dr. Fologea has always actively recruited and mentored students of diverse background in terms of majors (physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, health sciences, engineering) and background (Native American, Hispanic, female). He makes it his job to ensure that *all* students learn and succeed, not just those with high entrance scores. His students speak of him glowingly, and often with adulation, as a role model, mentor, and caring human being. He has actively mentored 7 biomolecular sciences graduate students, more than 75 undergraduates, and 18 high-school students.
Dr. Fologea is an internationally known researcher in the field of membrane biophysics, whose research articles have been cited more than 1,300 times. In 2016, Dr. Fologea was awarded a highly prestigious single-investigator NSF CAREER grant for his research on ion channels. He has also received grant funding as PI from NASA, and from the State Board of Education to support his collaboration with local biomedical industry. Dr. Fologea holds two U.S. patents for inventions based on his research related to controlled drug release.
Dr. Fologea excels as a highly ranked teacher and devoted mentor, as a highly cited international researcher, and as a generous contributor to the functioning of the university and the success of its students.
Dr. Jennifer Pierce, Department of Geosciences
Among Jennifer Pierce’s numerous accomplishments in teaching, research, and service, her efforts to spur community engagement with climate change and environmental education are particularly noteworthy. As described by the chair of the Department of Geosciences, she is an inspiring teacher, a productive and impactful researcher, and has provided outstanding service to her university, college, department, and profession. Most impressively, however, she has been, in the words of her chair, “a tireless advocate for climate and environmental science since long before it became a national crisis.”
Thanks to Climate Change Solutions, a program she founded in 2017, all Idaho elementary students receive two hours of climate change education every year. She has spent more than 100 hours teaching in classrooms in the Boise area and is helping to develop lessons for Next Generation Science Standards. She inspired her Boise State students to organize Boise’s March for Science in 2017 and beginning in 2016, at the request of former President Kustra, she has led the university’s efforts to recognize Earth Day. Dr. Pierce serves on the board of directors of the Idaho Environmental Forum and Friends of the Teton River and frequently talks to community organizations about environmental issues.
In addition to this outstanding community service, Dr. Pierce has taught two courses on global change for the Osher Institute, created two UFIOO courses and, as part of the Boise State Climate Change Initiative, wrote the curriculum of the new Climate Studies minor. She has mentored numerous graduate students, has published more than 20 peer-reviewed manuscripts, has maintained a steady stream of research support, and has organized sessions on global change at professional conferences.
This award recognizes Dr. Pierce’s outstanding contributions to Boise State and the profession regarding climate change and particularly her impact on elementary education across the state of Idaho.
Mr. Isam Ali, Department of World Languages
Isam Ali has been vital to the establishment and growth of the Arabic program at Boise State University. He helped to create the program in 2005 and to launch the Arabic Studies minor, and he has taught in the program continuously the past 13 years, often as the only adjunct instructor.
Mr. Ali regularly earns outstanding evaluations from students, including a perfect rating of 5 for overall instruction in 2017. He uses humor to connect with students, clearly explains course content, and effectively integrates cultural content. According to Mr. Ali’s colleagues, “Students repeatedly express their appreciation for his passion for teaching Arabic as well as the positive, fun, and engaging environment that he creates in the classroom. Students describe him as encouraging, understanding, engaging, kind, and helpful.”
Outside of the classroom, Mr. Ali has served as faculty advisor for the Arabic Club, advises native speakers of Arabic from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on university protocol and norms, and mentors other adjunct instructors of Arabic. He also administers numerous language challenge exams -more than 60 per year in recent years -and represented the Arabic program during the Disciplinary Lens Course Design Institute when Arabic language classes were added to the Foundational Studies Program. He does all of this in addition to holding a full-time job.
For his contributions to Boise State University and to the Department of World Languages, Mr. Ali is awarded the Adjunct Teaching Award. According to his colleagues, “Our department would not have an Arabic program without him.”