Brandão, Heasley, and Yoshida Honored by the College of Arts and Sciences
Three members of the history faculty were recognized for their accomplishments in the areas of research, teaching, and service. José António Brandão, Associate Professor, was given the Faculty Achievement Award in Research and Creative Activity. Brandão is author or coauthor of five books and dozens of articles and book reviews on the history and ethnohistory of Native-European interactions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His work has been hailed for its originality and meticulous research. No one, more than one reviewer has observed, has a better command of the primary sources used to write the story of this period.
Lynne Heasley, Associate Professor, was chosen in the category of Professional and Community Service. Heasley has contributed significant service to the History Department, the Environmental Studies Program, the Canadian Studies program, Western Michigan University, the teaching profession and the field of Environmental History. She was involved in no fewer than three major initiatives this past year alone: the Shared Waters Symposium which gathered at WMU experts and panels on the ecology, the science, the engineering, the commerce, and the politics surrounding the international region of the Great Lakes Basin; the Landmarks in American History Grant which brought together 112 teachers from 30 different states of the U.S. to study the rural history of America so that they could incorporate this vast and often neglected topic in their own classroom teaching; and served as Chair of the Program Committee for The American Society for Environmental History’s annual conference. This is a most fitting award for Heasley because it recognizes the important ways in which she has devoted herself to serving the students and faculty of Western, and because she carries her expertise far beyond the campus to K-12 teachers, to the Environmental History community, and to local organizations and into the international arena,
Takashi Yoshida, Assistant Professor, joined the department only a few years ago, but he has already made his mark as an exemplary researcher and teacher. Among his most innovative courses are his Japanese History through Film and Literature and From Rickshaw to Lexus: Japanese History through Cars and Motorcycles. Both of these delight students, the former because it made a distant history accessible and introduced them to a world of aesthetics and narrative that was new, and the latter because of its unique perspectives on history. Those who have observed his teaching comment on favorably on the fact that he requires writing at all levels of instruction and is highly proficient in employing instructional technologies in Western’s wireless classrooms. A colleague, in evaluating one of his courses, commented on the use of technology by calling the class a “visual delight.” The Faculty Award in Teaching recognizes his enthusiasm for teaching and his success in the classroom.