Top Ag Honors go to Illinois Professors
Published: Jun. 26, 2008
Urbana -- The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign took more top honors at this summer's annual conference of the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture (NACTA) than any other institution of higher education.
Seven professors and one graduate student from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) received awards at NACTA's 54th annual conference.
NACTA's most prestigious honor, the Distinguished Educator Award, went to Dr. Wayne L. Banwart, who retired from the University of Illinois in September 2007 after serving the College of ACES for 32 years, most recently as Interim Associate Dean. The Distinguished Educator Award recognizes meritorious service to NACTA and to higher education through teaching, educational research, and administration. Banwart was one of three individuals who received the award in 2008.
The Teaching Award of Excellence for 2008 was awarded to Dr. Robert M. Skirvin, campus honors faculty member with ACES' Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. To qualify for this award, the recipient must exemplify excellence in post-secondary instruction in agriculture, and have previously received a NACTA Teaching Fellow Award.
Illinois also walked away from the NACTA conference with the 2008 John Deere Award, which was given to Dr. Philip Buriak of the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at ACES. The John Deere award is awarded jointly to one faculty member and his or her institution each year. The award recognizes outstanding teachers and programs of agricultural business, technology and/or management, with special emphasis on preparing students for employment in the areas of management, sales, service, processing, and production.
Four ACES professors were honored with NACTA Teaching Fellow Awards, a criterion-based award recognizing individuals whose efforts represent the very best in agricultural higher education. Illinois recipients for 2008 were Dr. Darin M. Eastburn, an associate professor in the Department of Crop Sciences; Dr. Nicki J. Engeseth, associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition; Dr. Jennifer L. Hardesty, assistant professor in the Department of Human and Community Development; and Dr. Schuyler S. Korban, professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at ACES. Abram J. Bicksler, a doctoral candidate from ACES' Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, received a NACTA Graduate Student Award. The honor recognizes and rewards graduate students who excel as teachers in an agricultural discipline, and who have been actively involved in classroom teaching for a minimum of one year.
About this year's Illinois award winners:
Dr. Wayne L. Banwart has been a valuable contributor to the educational offerings of the College of ACES through more than 32 years of service. His teaching career began with Introductory Soils, a science-based course that attracted enrollments of up to 200 students per semester. He started his administrative career as Associate Head of the Agronomy Department, and went on to serve as the college's Assistant Dean for Academic Programs for ten years. In that position, Banwart was responsible for coordinating course and curricular direction for the entire College of ACES undergraduate enrollment of approximately 2200 students in seven departments. Banwart also was the founder and director of the James Scholar Honors Program at ACES, which promotes undergraduate research and involves more than 200 students each year.
Most recently, Banwart served as Interim Associate Dean of ACES, where he was responsible for all teaching programs of the college. He retired from that position in September 2008. Dr. Banwart is a NACTA Fellow and recipient of the NACTA Regional Outstanding Teacher Award and the NACTA Teaching Award of Excellence. He is a lifetime member of NACTA, and served as the organization's president in 2007-2008.
Abram J. Bicksler is a doctoral candidate in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As a teaching assistant, Bicksler has taught "Home Vegetable Gardening" for nine semesters to well over 500 students in 20 laboratory sections. He has been recognized as an Outstanding TA by the University of Illinois' "List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students" every semester that he has taught. Bicksler is one of two recipients of the College of ACES' Louis V. Logeman Graduate Student Teaching Award in 2008. Bicksler completed his MS at the University of Illinois with research in "Reduced Risk Nightshade Management for Tomatoes." His PhD research focuses on "Canada Thistle Management Systems for Sustainable and Organic Farms."
Bicksler has committed to a teaching and research Post-Doc in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute (ISDSI) and the Upland Holistic Development Project (UHDP) after the completion of his PhD.
Dr. Philip Buriak received his BS and MS from Pennsylvania State University and his PhD from The Ohio State University. He joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1988.
As a professor of agricultural and biological engineering in the College of ACES, Buriak envisioned a curriculum that would educate students to become technically competent business people, and was instrumental in the development of the new Technical Systems Management (TSM) curriculum that premiered in 1997 within the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering. Since its inception, the program has grown from enrolling 23 students in the TSM major to more than 90 students, with graduates finding excellent careers at starting salaries consistently above the college average.
Buriak received the Senior Teaching Award of Excellence in 1999 from the College of ACES. Buriak has been listed on the University of Illinois "List of Teachers Rated Excellent" each of his 37 semesters of teaching. He retired in June 2007.
Dr. Darin Eastburn is an associate professor in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois. Eastburn received his bachelors degree in botany from Humboldt State University (Arcata, CA) in 1981, going on for Masters and PhD degrees in plant pathology from the University of California, Davis.
Eastburn joined the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Illinois in 1988. Originally hired as the state extension specialist for diseases of vegetable crops, he received the ACES Faculty Achievement Award for Extension in 1998. In 1999, he accepted a research/teaching position in the Department of Crop Sciences. His research now focuses on soilborne, plant pathogenic fungi. Current research projects include the evaluation of factors affecting the development of sudden death syndrome of soybeans, the development of disease suppressive soils in organic agricultural systems, and the effects of elevated ozone and carbon dioxide on soybean diseases.
Easburn teaches the graduate courses "Plant Pathogenic Fungi" and "Professionalism and Ethics". He also teaches "Plants, Pathogens, and People," an undergraduate course. Eastburn is interested in developing and evaluating new strategies for teaching his classes, focusing on active learning techniques and new teaching technologies for increasing student interest and participation. He is involved in several funded "scholarship of teaching and learning" (SoTL) research projects. He has published teaching-related articles in scholarly journals, and has presented the results of his teaching research at national and international meetings, including the annual meetings of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
Dr. Nicki J. Engeseth received her PhD in Food Science from Michigan State University, her MS in Foods and Nutrition from the University of Illinois and her BS in Biology from the University of Minnesota.
She completed a NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Botany Department at Michigan State University, which included six months of research in the Swedish University of Agriculture, Plant Physiology Department (Uppsala, Sweden).
Engeseth joined the faculty of the College of ACES as an Assistant Professor of Food Chemistry in 1996. During her graduate career, Engeseth served as a teaching assistant for a variety of food science courses and as an instructor for a food chemistry laboratory. In her current faculty position she teaches primarily food chemistry courses, including an undergraduate course, "The Science of Foods"; a course in food chemistry for both graduate and undergraduate students, and an advanced lipids graduate course. Engeseth's research areas complement the food chemistry theme, providing a rich learning environment for students both in and outside the classroom.
Dr. Jennifer L. Hardesty is an assistant professor of human development and family studies in the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois. Hardesty teaches courses in family transitions, family theory, and intimate partner violence. She has been included on the "List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students" numerous times. She has also won the College of ACES Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Hardesty's academic research focuses on intimate partner violence, separation/divorce, and child custody issues. In 2005, she was awarded the Jessie Bernard Award for Outstanding Contribution to Feminist Scholarship from the National Council on Family Relations. She completed her PhD in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Missouri in 2001.
Dr. Schulyer S. Korban is a professor of molecular genetics and biotechnology in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. Korban received his PhD in plant genetics from the University of Nebraska in 1980, completed postdoctoral training at the University of Illinois, and then was appointed as a faculty member to the College of ACES in 1982.
Korban served as a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) in the summers of 1997 and 2006. During the fall of 2007, he served as a Fulbright Distinguished Chair at York University in Toronto, where he taught the course "Ethics in Biotechnology."
Over the course of his career, Korban has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses, and his name has appeared on the University of Illinois' "Campus List of Teachers Rated Excellent by Their Students." He has served as major graduate advisor for 27 graduate students and served on 20 additional graduate committees, and has mentored undergraduate student projects. Korban serves as editor-in-chief, associate editor, or editorial board member for several scientific journals, including Critical Reviews in Plant Science; Tropical Plant Biology; Plant Molecular Biology Reporter; Plant Breeding; Plant, Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture; and In Vitro Cellular and Developmental Biology-Plant.
Korban received the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) Outstanding Researcher Award in 2002 and the ASHS Outstanding International Horticulturist Award in 2007. He was elected a Fellow of ASHS in 2002 and a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition in 2003. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2006-2007 and a Fulbright Distinguished Chair in 2007-2008. Dr. Robert M. Skirvin career at the University of Illinois began in 1976. As a faculty member with ACES' Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, he has written numerous scientific papers, book chapters, and has collaborated on various research programs. He is co-author of two plant patents. He completed sabbaticals in New Zealand and Australia, and has lectured and traveled in traveled in Argentina, China, Egypt, France, Italy, Romania, Scandinavia and South Africa.
Skirvin has been on the University of Illinois' "Incomplete List of Excellent Teachers" each semester since 1977, and was awarded the College of ACES' Young Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1988 as well as the senior teaching award in 1998. He was a founding member of the College of ACES' Academy of Teaching Excellence in 1992. In 1996 he received NACTA's Teaching Award of Merit. In 1997, he received the USDA's North Central Regional Award for Excellence in Teaching. The University of Illinois awarded him the Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education in 1998, and again in 2004. Also in 1998, the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) honored him with the ASHS Outstanding Undergraduate Educator Award. In 2000 Skirvin received the College of ACES prestigious Funk Award. In 2002 he received the Campus Award for Excellence in Guiding Undergraduate Research and the ASHS named one of his thornless blackberries, 'Chester Thornless', as an outstanding fruit cultivar. In 2003 NACTA named him their 2003 Central Regional Outstanding Teacher. In 2006, he received the Broderick Allen Award for excellence in Honors Teaching from the University of Illinois.
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