• Advising
• Awards
• Undergraduate Programs
• Graduate Programs
• Doctoral Programs
• Departments & Schools
• Committees & Councils
• Administration Forms & Policies
• Communications & Events
• Photo Gallery
• Scholarships & Fellowships
• Research
• Points of Pride
• Faculty Achievements
• Staff
• Instructional Technology Resource Center
• Contact Us

 

Points of Pride

• Seven students with College of Arts and Sciences majors or minors recently were awarded $1,000 each from the State Farm Companies Foundation to support their participation as teacher interns during spring 2009 semester.
• The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) is the largest of six academic colleges at Western Michigan University, and holds appointments for nearly 45 percent of the University's faculty.
• With 27 departments in three major divisions, as well as interdisciplinary departments and institutions, the College is the most diverse academic unit within the University.
• The College of Arts and Sciences offers more than 100 majors, minors and programs.
• The Department of History has received a second Teaching American History Grant of nearly $1 million to help teachers improve U.S. history instruction in southwestern Michigan. The three-year grant is part of the "Teaching American History Initiative" developed by West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd and administered by the U.S. Department of Education. The goal of the initiative, which is in its fifth year, is to improve the teaching of U.S. history at the K-12 levels.
• The WMU Department of Spanish has its first doctoral student in Spanish. The student’s study examines the importance of visual elements in Vargas Llosa's prose and the role that said elements play in the creation of imaginary worlds or "sub worlds."
• A School of Communication professor was named a 2008 WMU Emerging Scholar.
• Two members of the Mallinson Institute for Science Education have been named recipients of WMU 2006-2007 "Make a Difference" Awards. Make a Difference is a campuswide peer-to-peer program that recognizes staff members for their accomplishments and daily investment of energy and creativity. It features semiannual and annual awards that go to non-faculty employees who provide exceptional services to the university.
• Three Mallinson Institute for Science Education professors have been awarded a National Science Foundation grant for their project entitled: INTEGRATED APPRENTICESHIP IN THE TEACHING OF ELEMENTARY SCIENCE (IATES). The award is for $200,000 over three years, in the CCLI program of the NSF. The project will develop a program for elementary educators that integrates the design of the physics content and science teaching methods courses, adopts an apprenticeship instructional model, and develops the science in an explicitinquiry framework.
• Seven faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences have been recognized with 2006-2007 College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Achievement Awards. The awards are based on outstanding performance in teaching, research and creative activity, or professional and community service.
• Nineteen out of 20 Presidential Scholars are students in the College of Arts and Sciences, and one served as a College of Arts and Sciences Student Ambassador in 2006. The Presidential Scholars Convocation is an annual event which has been instituted to honor WMU's outstanding senior students, as nominated by the faculty of each academic department. The award is WMU's highest honor presented to a senior.
• A first-year student in the School of Communication was competitively selected to the Student Program of the American Pavilion of the widely acclaimed Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, held during May 2007.
• CAS Department of Mathematics professor and 17 other mathematicians and computer scientists successfully mapped a 120-year-old puzzle. The team, with creative minds hailing from the United States and Europe, was convened by the American Institute of Mathematics in Palo Alto, Calif., to map a theoretical object known as "Lie group E8." The Atlas of Lie Groups Project is funded by the National Science Foundation.
• A College of Arts and Sciences student received second place honors in the Third Annual Midwest Chinese Speaking Contest held at Northwestern University. More than 61 students from 21 Midwestern universities participated in the event that separated students into five groups based on their language experience.
• A new research grant of $476,417 from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the WMU Mallinson Institute for Science Education will help evaluate the Mars Exploration Public Engagement program, including its planning, instrument development, data collection, data analysis and reporting.
• The National Science Foundation awarded an associate professor of chemistry, $595,000 to conduct research on the molecular details of copper transport. A portion of the grant will be used to promote science both locally and as far away as institutions in Kenya.
• Two longtime Western Michigan University faculty members, revered by students for their instructional skills, are the first to be named recipients of WMU's Distinguished Teaching Awards, a revival of a similar University program that for 35 years honored classroom excellence.
• A professor of Spanish, and an associate professor of political science, have received the WMU Alumni Association Teaching Excellence Award. In 2006, the new program was launched and will honor up to three full-time faculty members each year.
• The city of Kalamazoo and Western Michigan University's Department of Chemistry have announced a collaboration to turn fast-food waste grease into an environmentally friendly biodiesel fuel-called Bronco Biodiesel. The pilot project, funded by a WMU grant, is expected to reduce some waste that ends up in landfills, prevent grease from clogging up the city's water system and clean up the tailpipe emissions of some city buses.
• The second WMU College of Arts and Sciences graduate and one of fewer than 100 students worldwide has been awarded a Cambridge Scholarship, one of the world's most prestigious awards in higher education. The student began his graduate work in philosophy in Cambridge's King's College last October and is the first Gates Scholar to attend from Haiti.
• The School of Communication has begun a capital campaign entitled: Our Second Century-Honoring the Past, Embracing the Future, Invest in Our Next 100 Years! The goal of the campaign will be to build on the gifts the School received this year and to raise additional endowment-focused support that will help guarantee a bright future for the School of Communication. To launch the campaign and ensure its ultimate success, five significant and generous gifts have recently been committed to the School of Communication, and the School has exceeded$2,000,000 in support in just two years.
• Third Coast Writing Project has been awarded a grant by the National Writing Project (Berkeley, Calif). The award is being used for ongoing work with K-12 teachers in exploring multimedia (especially digital storytelling) as a writing and thinking process that can support learning across the curriculum. Last year TCWP worked with more than 1,300 teachers from southwest Michigan school districts.
• Five of seven WMU Fulbright Award recipients are faculty for the College of Arts and Sciences. Western Michigan has the largest number of Fulbright Awards of any college/university in Michigan in 2006-2007.
• In spring of 2007, a new $28.5 million chemistry building opened its doors for the first time. The instructional laboratory facility will be used for student instruction and includes three large auditoriums that can be used for both chemistry and general-education purposes.
• In the last five years, three of the Distinguished Alumni recipients,the university's highest alumni honor, have been School of Communication alumni: Roz Abrams, Jack Clifford, and Jim Hickey. That is a total of seven Distinguished alumni for the School.
• One of the 2007 recipients of the Alumni Teaching Excellence Award was Dr. Rick Gershon of the School of Communication. Dr. Gershon is the seventh member of the faculty in the School of communication to receive the university's highest teaching award.