The UNL Office of Graduate Studies presented awards for outstanding graduate education at its annual Graduate Studies Awards Reception in February. Award winners were:
Lowe R. and Mavis M. Folsom Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award — Jared Leighton of Watertown, S.D.. Leighton completed his doctoral degree in history under associate professor Patrick Jones. His dissertation is titled “Freedom Indivisible: Gays and Lesbians in the African American Civil Rights Movement.”
Lowe R. and Mavis M. Folsom Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award — Eric Skov of Olathe, Kan. Skov received his master’s degree in anthropology under Professor LuAnn Wandsnider. Skov’s thesis is “Experimentation in Sling Weaponry: Effectiveness of and Archaeological Implications for a World-Wide Primitive Technology.”
Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant Award — Yue Zhao of Xiangyang, Hubei, China. Zhao is a doctoral student in electrical engineering working as a research assistant with associate professor Wei Qiao.
Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award — L.J. McElravy of Omaha. McElravy is a doctoral student in human sciences with a specialization in leadership studies and is a teaching assistant under the supervision of Professor Gina Matkin.
Dean’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Education — Jonis Agee, Adele Hall professor of English and creative writing, and Sarah Gervais, assistant professor of psychology.
Agee has graduated two to five doctoral students each year since 2005, a total of 10 from August 2012 to August 2013. She is directing 10 doctoral students and three master’s students, in addition to serving as a reader on several other committees. Almost all of the students she directs finish within three to five years, and they complete at least one, often two and sometimes three books in that time span, while teaching four courses a year. The English department revised the doctoral program in the early 2000s — shifting to an individualized program, evaluated through a professional portfolio.
Agee was instrumental in setting up policies that allowed creative writers to complete publishable books and receive contracts for them as part of the program’s work, and select “field and focus” comprehensive exams that would directly support the development of their creative work.
Gervais is an assistant professor in psychology. She views her graduate students as genuine collaborators in her research because the students bring fresh perspectives to the field based on their own experiences. It is this novel perspective that often allows students to question the default assumptions of a field and to shed new light on existing findings, allowing for true scientific discoveries. Her students have been recognized and rewarded for their efforts. One of her students received a Presidential Fellowship and one of them received a Graduate Research Assistant Award from the Office of Graduate Studies. She received the Georgia Babledelis Best Paper Award at Psychology of Women Quarterly from Division 35 of the American Psychological Association for a paper she co-authored (Gervais, Vescio and Allen, 2011).
Gervais has also won the Teacher of the Year Award from the UNL psychology department, for being an outstanding faculty member who has made a positive difference in the lives of students.
