51ÉçÇø

Photographer: Ben SiegelDr. Risa Whitson, an associate professor of geography and in the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and the 2016 Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award recipient, delivers the keynote address at the spring 2017 Graduate Commencement ceremony.

51ÉçÇø’s Graduate Student Senate is calling on all OHIO graduate students to submit nominations for the 2018 Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award.

Established in 1972, the Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award recognizes an OHIO professor who has demonstrated exemplary performance as an instructor, researcher and faculty member. The award is bestowed annually with the recipient announced at the Graduate Commencement ceremony held each spring. 

Nominations are being accepted online by , and the deadline to submit a nomination is 5 p.m. Friday, March 9. Any OHIO faculty member who has taught a graduate-level course, including online courses, during the 2017-18 academic year is eligible to be nominated, but graduate students are allowed only one nomination each.

Members of Graduate Student Senate’s Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award Committee will review the nominations and determine the winner, who will be announced in April. The faculty member who is selected for the 2018 Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award will receive a certificate and will have the honor of speaking at the 2019 Graduate Commencement ceremony.

The 2017 Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award was presented to Devika Chawla, a professor in the Scripps College of Communication’s School of Communication Studies. Dr. Chawla’s research focuses on communicative, performative and narrative approaches to studying family, home and its relationship to social identity. As stated in her nomination, "Dr. Chawla's capacity to balance personal support with a demand for academic excellence is unparalleled in my experience. She has consistently challenged me to go beyond my self-imposed limits of intellectual understanding and imagination." Dr. Chawla will deliver the keynote address at this spring’s Graduate Commencement ceremony.

For more information about Graduate Student Senate’s Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award program, visit the Graduate Student Senate website or email gss@ohio.edu.

OHIO’s Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award recipients

The following 51ÉçÇø faculty members hold the title of Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award recipients:

1973 – Warren Wistendahl, botany
1974 – Richard F. Whitman, interpersonal communication
1975 – Robert De Mott, English
1976 – Hugh Culbertson, journalism
1977 – Alan Booth, political science
1978 – Moid U Ahmad, geology 
1979 – Felix Gagliano, political science, international studies
1980 – Rajinder Koshal, economics
1981 – Shirley Slater, home economics
1984 – David Heaton, English 
1986 – Eric Wagner, sociology
1987 – Janis Holm, English
1988 – Dwight A. Pugh, finance
1989 – Drew McDaniel, telecommunications
1990 – Patrick Washburn, journalism
1991 – Gar W. Rothwell, environment and plant biology
1992 – Algis Mickunas, philosophy
1993 – Jenny L. Nelson, telecommunications
1994 – Irwin Ungar, environment and plant biology
1995 – Josep Rota, telecommunications
1996 – Gary Small, chemistry
1997 – Martin Schwartz, sociology and anthropology
1999 – SK Jain, mathematics 
2001 – Mary Beth Krouse, sociology
2002 – Douglas Bolon, social and public health
2007 – Valerie Martin Conley, counseling and higher education
2008 – Patricia Ann Weitsman, political science
2010 – Greg Kessler, computer-assisted language learning 
2013 – Aimee Edmondson, journalism
2014 – Thomas Vander Ven, sociology 
2016 – Risa Whitson, geography and women’s, gender and sexuality studies
2017 – Devika Chawla, communication studies