Award season offers recognition for faculty
Hollywood may have the Oscars and Emmys, but Western University has the DUPs and the Hellmuths.
The spring signals the awarding of the University’s most prestigious awards in the areas of teaching, leadership and research. Once again faculty members from across Schulich Medicine & Dentistry received the University’s highest honours.
Described as innovators, hailed as superb, and considered simply the best, Jerry Battista, PhD and Brad Uquhart, PhD received two of Western’s teaching honours.
Battista received the Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching, and Urquhart received Marilyn Robinson Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Dr. Mandar Jog Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, Neurology was named as a 2014 Faculty Scholar.
He was recognized with 12 of his peers for significant achievements in teaching or research. The recipients of Faculty Scholar awards are considered all-around scholars and receive $7,000 each year for scholarly activities.
In the area of research achievement, Dr. Stewart Harris, professor, Department of Family Medicine and Dr. Charles Weijer, professor, Department of Philosophy, and Medicine were awarded the Hellmuth Prize.
The honour recognizes faculty members with outstanding international reputations for their contributions in research – one of the defining hallmarks of a university. There are only two prizes are offered annually, and it is an outstanding accomplishment that both recipients are part of the faculty for the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry.
Established in 2005, The Distinguished University Professor Award recognizes sustained excellence in scholarship over a substantial career at the University. Scholarship is broadly defined to include research, teaching and service to the community.
The Distinguished University Professorship recognizes sustained excellence as a complete scholar which includes teaching, research and service to community. Dr. Michael Rieder and Cheryl Forchuk, PhD, were two recipients this year.
Dr. Michael J. Strong, dean, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry presented Dr. Reider with his award during the medicine convocation.
In doing so, he spoke to Dr. Reider’s award-winning and internationally recognized clinical research focusing on the pathogenesis of serious immune-mediated adverse drug effects. He also spoke to Dr. Reider’s innovation as an educator, saying, "Dr. Reider is a dedicated educator and has helped to develop an integrated third-year clerkship curriculum and brought the Clinical Investigators Program to the School."
He noted the many awards and accolades Dr. Reider has received as an educator including the Schulich Undergraduate Leader Award of Excellence and the Class of 1962 Award, which he received four times.
Dr. Reider’s commitment to service as a foster parent to more than 150 medical fragile infants during the past 13 years, was also highlighted as was the fact that he continues to serve on numerous academic and research focused committees.
Cheryl Forchuk, a professor in Western University’s Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing with a cross-appointment in the Department of Psychiatry, also received a Distinguished University.
Forchuk has established herself as an internationally acclaimed researcher in the area of recovery and community integration for people with mental illness.
“Dr. Forchuk’s record of service to the university, and the broader research community, is exemplary,” said Jim Weese, Health Sciences dean.
“She is an effective builder, a collaborative scholar, and we are truly fortunate to have her as a member of our faculty. She represents the very best we have to offer. She is a credit to the university and a powerful ambassador of the good that can come from an academic institution.”
Source: Western News
