University Scholars

The 1994 class of University Scholars - 22 faculty members representing
both campuses and a wide variety of disciplines - were honored during the
UI Foundation's 59th annual meeting Friday.

Each scholar receives a stipend for three years to support his or her
scholarly activities. The money can be used to travel, hire graduate
assistants, purchase research equipment or otherwise further scholarship.

"We celebrate this new class of University Scholars with pride," said
Sylvia Manning, vice president for academic affairs. "They represent the
very best traditions of teaching, research and public service at the
University of Illinois."

Established in 1985, the University Scholars program has honored 247 UI
faculty members. Financial support for the program comes from private gifts
to the foundation's Advancement Fund.

Thirteen young scholars each were awarded $6,000 for each of three years to
help support their scholarly work. These faculty members, in the beginning
of their careers, already have demonstrated strong scholarship and show
promise of achieving even greater eminence. Annual awards of $12,000 for
each of three years were made to nine senior faculty members whose work is
superior in their fields.

University Scholars are nominated by their departments and final selection
is made by a committee of senior faculty members.


Stephen P. D'Arcy, professor of finance

D'Arcy has compiled an outstanding record in both teaching and research in
insurance finance in the dozen years since he earned his doctorate.

Much of his work has practical applications to the operations of insurance
companies: His research is cited in insurance-rate filings by major
national insurance companies to justify discounts to long-term
policyholders, and his work on insurance futures, a relatively new type of
investment, influenced the Chicago Board of Trade to modify its proposed
futures contracts to match his ideas.

D'Arcy regularly wins college and campus awards for teaching, and he won
the first Innovation in Instruction Award given by the American Risk and
Insurance Association, the foremost organization of academics who
specialize in insurance. Four years ago, he instituted a lecture series
that brings important insurance figures to campus for pizza and the
opportunity to meet students in the introductory insurance course. By last
spring, he had attracted the presidents of eight major insurance
organizations, two insurance commissioners, a U.S. congressman, an
insurance consumer advocate and others to the Emerson Cammack Lecture
Series.


Michael F. Berube, associate professor of English

Berube, tenured after just four years, has carved out a high-profile
position as one of the nation's strongest critics working in 20th-century
American literature, African-American literature and literature theory.

He also has bridged the gap between the scholarly world, with its
controversies over postmodernism, and the readers of the "Village Voice,"
who wonder about political correctness and the role of intellectuals in the
culture.

"This is a first-rate scholar with wide-ranging interests and abilities who
is certain to make his mark on our profession in his writings," said Nina
Baym, professor of English and University Scholar. "The word brilliant is
tossed around in our profession today like popcorn, but Berube really is
brilliant."


Charles F. Zukoski, professor of chemical engineering

Zukoski is an expert on colloids, which have applications in such diverse
areas as pigments, magnetic recording media and ceramics.

His significant impact and rapid advancement in his field is demonstrated
by his receiving an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, a Fulbright
Scholarship, a Cal Tech lectureship and his rapid promotion to professor at
the UI, where he is interim head of chemical engineering.

Zukoski is an exceptional teacher as well. He received the 1992 Everitt
Teaching Award, a highly competitive honor that students initiate.

His broad interests, including substantial industrial consulting, are
indicated by his involvement in the Beckman Institute, the Material
Research Laboratory and the Center for Advanced Cement-based Materials, all
at the UI. Because of these activities, a number of professional societies
rely on Zukoski to organize symposia, including the American Chemical
Society, American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Materials
Research Society. He is associate editor of the Journal of the American
Ceramics Society.


Shelly J. Schmidt, associate professor of foods and nutrition

Schmidt's general research interest is the study of carbohydrates and
protein chemistry, especially as they interact with water. This work has
implications for food processing and in everyone's kitchen. She also is a
leader in the use of magnetic resonance imaging techniques to set the
limits in safe food processing.

Her teaching is exemplary; she consistently appears on the best-teacher
list and last year was a regional winner of the U.S.D.A.'s National Award
for Excellence in Teaching in Food and Agricultural Science. She developed
a writing-for-learning course that is a model for the campus's more
stringent general-education requirements and is a leader in computer-aided
instruction. She also has volunteered to teach in the off-campus graduate
program that serves more than 60 students employed in the food industry.


Keith W. Kelley, professor of animal sciences

Kelley has "demonstrated the vision, imagination and tenacity of the
complete scientist," says his department Faculty Honors Committee that
nominated him.

Among Kelley's specialties is how hormones and proteins from white blood
cells affect immunity. His work has aided other scientists in their study
of AIDS-wasting, wound-healing and aging. His contributions to both the
animal and basic biological sciences have firmly established immunology in
the fields of endocrinology, neuroscience and pharmacology.

He has been honored for his research by the French government, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, USSR Academy of Medical Sciences and the
American Society of Animal Science.


Kenneth S. Suslick, professor of chemical sciences and of materials science
and in the Beckman Institute

Suslick has established an outstanding international reputation as a
scholar of distinction in two entirely separate research areas: the
chemical effects of ultrasound and the bioinorganic chemistry of heme
(metal) proteins.

Among recent awards for his creative research are the 1994 American
Chemical Society Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education -
given jointly to student and mentor for the best doctoral thesis in the
United States, a Special Creativity Award from the National Science
Foundation, election as a fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and the Materials Research Society Medal for
exceptional achievements in materials research.

He developed an undergraduate course in the chemistry of everyday
phenomena, the only chemistry course offered for students outside of
science or engineering. He often appears on the best-teacher list and twice
received the School of Chemical Sciences Teaching Award.


Nigel D. Goldenfeld, associate professor of physics

Goldenfeld's research is remarkable for its quality, breadth and impact. He
has made significant contributions to three normally distinct areas of
condensed-matter physics. In all three interest areas he developed
theoretical models, solved the models ingeniously and then tested the
results experimentally.

"At the same time his teaching performance is outstanding, among the top
two or three in a department with many outstanding, committed instructors,"
says his nominator.

Goldenfeld has been honored with a Xerox Research Award and Sloan
Fellowship. Since 1985, he has been named to the campus's best-teacher list
every semester but one and is a leader in course and curriculum
development.


J. Bruce Litchfield, associate professor of agricultural engineering

Litchfield exemplifies faculty excellence: an exceptional teacher, praised
by students and peers, and an innovative and productive researcher.

He is a food engineer, seeking answers to problems in food processing using
magnetic resonance imaging to research heat and mass transfers. He also has
developed a computer vision-based system for monitoring microbial
cultivations and fermentation, which has a number of practical applications
not only in the food industry but also in pharmaceuticals. Finally, he has
worked in the area of sensors and controls, using grain-drying, processing
and fermentations as the test area.

Litchfield has developed three new courses in food engineering. He appears
repeatedly on the campus list of best teachers, has been honored by his
department, college and the campus for teaching and received the A.W.
Farrell Young Educator Award, only one of which is given annually by the
American Society of Agricultural Engineers


Donald M. Ginsberg, professor of physics

Ginsberg's nominator called him the paradigm for faculty excellence,
combining internationally acclaimed research of great impact with teaching
consistently recognized as among the best in the university.

Ginsberg joined the UI faculty in 1959 as a research associate. His
research has focused exclusively on superconductivity for four decades,
ultimately making him the nucleus of high-temperature superconductivity
work at this campus and one of the scientists who lent credibility to the
campus plan to establish the Science and Technology Center for
Superconductivity, underwritten by the National Science Foundation.

He is consistently on the best-teacher list and is an outstanding graduate
student adviser and postdoctoral mentor. During three of the last four
years, undergraduate physics students chose Ginsberg as their departmental
commencement speaker, confirming his status as also being the person most
often cited as best teacher by departing seniors in their exit interviews.


Nils P. Jacobsen, associate professor of history

Since his arrival on campus in 1985, Jacobsen quickly established himself
as a leading theoretician and the most broadly read researcher among the
younger history professors.

Jacobsen, who writes in English, Spanish and his native German, focuses on
the political and economic cultures of Latin America during the 18th and
19th centuries. He has co-organized two research conferences; was invited
lecturer at conferences and conventions in South America, the United States
and Europe; and was contributing editor of the annual "Handbook of Latin
American Studies," produced by the Library of Congress.

His teaching of undergraduate and graduates alike is widely appreciated; he
helped design a new undergraduate course on Latin America that rapidly
attracted capacity enrollments.


Wen-Mei Hwu, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering

The main focus of Hwu's work is in the area of computer architecture and
compiler design. In 1987, he founded an architectural framework project.
Since then, his work has contributed to the design of huge microprocessors
and computer systems at NCR, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and other computer
companies.

Eta Kappa Nu, the national honor society of electrical engineers, last year
named Hwu the Outstanding Young Electrical Engineer by virtue of his very
significant contribution to computer engineering, and for his dedication as
an outstanding teacher, adviser and leader in his profession.

Student rankings have earned him a place on the best-teacher list every
year since he joined the faculty, and he is among the top 10 percent of
College of Engineering Advisers, according to an independent student
evaluation.

William D. Carlson, professor of art and design

Carlson is an internationally recognized artist who has made major
contributions to the field of glass sculpture. His art is a complicated mix
of laminated glass and stone that uses the refractory - light-bending -
properties of glass in a bewildering array of images that are embedded at
various physical levels in the work.

He is acclaimed as one of a few artists who can produce high-quality work
in ample quantity. His work can be found in the two most influential
glass-sculpture galleries in North America - the Heller Gallery in New York
and the Rosenfield Gallery in Chicago, as well as in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, the Kyoto Museum of Modern Art and the Royal Ontario Museum.

His nominator calls him a wise, empathetic and energetic teacher, who
attracts eager students to his studio and classroom.


Edward W. Voss Jr., professor of microbiology

Immunologist Voss is responsible for a series of major findings involving
antibodies and basic protein structure. His studies have led to a deeper
understanding - at the cell and atomic levels - of the disease lupus,
leading the American Lupus Society to give Voss its two highest honors: the
Fleur-de-Lis in 1986 and induction into the National Lupus Hall of Fame in
1988.

For more than a quarter-century he has taught a course in immunochemistry
considered unique in design and content and praised across the country.
Half the students taking this course are undergraduates who gain an edge in
employment in pharmaceutical, chemical and biotechnology companies because
of the background and exposure to cutting-edge material the course
provides.

Voss is in seven "Who's Who"-type biographical listings, is a fellow of the
American Institute of Chemists and was named a Jubilee Professor in the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1990.