Five professors have been named recipients of this year's UNLV Foundation Distinguished Teaching Awards.
The professors are Cyndi Giorgis of curriculum and instruction, Stephen Rowland of geoscience, Vicki Holmes of the English Language Center, John Bowen of tourism and convention administration, and Michael Hall of psychology.
The awards, which will be presented to the winners during a special ceremony April 9 at 3:30 p.m., carry a stipend of $5,000 each.
Giorgis, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction, has been at UNLV since 1995. She currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in children's and young adult literature and has co-authored two books and numerous scholarly articles on the topic. Prior to joining UNLV, she taught at the University of Arizona and at elementary schools in Wyoming, Connecticut, and Arizona. In 1995, she was awarded both the Tucson Unified School District Superintendent's Award and the Tucson Area Reading Council Literacy Award. Giorgis received her bachelor's degree in elementary education from Chadron State College and her master's in library science and doctoral degree in children's literature from the University of Arizona.
Rowland, a member of the UNLV faculty since 1984, is a professor of geology and the author of numerous scholarly articles and field guides. In 1989, he was selected for a Fulbright scholarship in the U.S.S.R, where he taught for two years at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Novosibirsk, Siberia. In 1996-97, he served as a science and diplomacy fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. Rowland earned his undergraduate degree in zoology from University of California, Berkeley, and his doctoral degree in geology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Holmes, director of the English Language Center at UNLV, has been a faculty member since 1990. During her career, she has taught English literacy skills to multicultural groups of adults, international teachers, and military personnel at various institutions in Nevada, California, Panama, and Spain. In 1994, she received a grant to develop the first computer-based language lab at UNLV, and in 1998 she was awarded the Faculty Excellence Award for her development of outreach courses for ESL students. The author of numerous scholarly articles, she published her first book, "Writing Simple Poems: Pattern Poetry for Language Acquisition," in 2001. Holmes has earned master's degrees from University of Denver and Arizona State University and a Ph.D. from UNLV. She has also completed postgraduate work at the University of California, Riverside.
Bowen, professor and director of graduate programs for the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration, has been a faculty member at UNLV since 1993. He won the Sam and Mary Boyd Distinguished Professor Award for Teaching Excellence in 1995, and the Sam and Mary Boyd Distinguished Professor Award for Research Excellence in 1998. He received the Claudine Williams distinguished chair in 2000. He is co-author of "Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism," which is published in seven languages. Bowen received his bachelor's degree in hotel administration from Cornell University, an MBA from Corpus Christi State University, and a Ph.D. in marketing from Texas A&M University.
An assistant professor of psychology, Hall has been a faculty member at UNLV since 1998. His research focuses on understanding the cues people use to attend to and identify common auditory events (e.g., speech and music). In 2001, he was awarded the Regional Faculty Advisor Award from Psi Chi, the national honor society in psychology. Hall received his bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of New Mexico and his master's and doctoral degrees in experimental psychology from the State University of New York at Binghamton.
