The West Virginia University College of Creative Arts has selected its 2023 faculty award winners.
Each year, the college awards for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity; Outstanding Teacher; Outstanding Service; and Adjunct Faculty Excellence.
"These awardees are fabulous models of how the arts represent WVU locally and globally,” Dean Keith Jackson said. “Though these faculty are being recognized for fulfilling different parts of our mission, each of them brings new knowledge and fresh voices to our community. I am in awe of what these winners are able to accomplish, and proud that they are members of the CCA."
Jennifer Walker, assistant professor of musicology in the School of Music, received the Excellence in Research and Creative Activity Award.
Walker’s first monograph, “Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces: Transforming Catholicism Through the Music of Nineteenth-Century Paris” was named as the 2022 recipient of the H. Robert Cohen/RIPM Award for a musicological work of exceptional merit based upon the musical press by the American Musicological Society. Walker is now working on a second book under contract with Oxford University Press entitled, “Hector Berlioz's Requiem.”
Walker has received many other awards and accolades over the last year, including being a co-author, co-editor and presenting at multiple academic conferences. Walker is also currently nominated for the Excellence in Community Engagement Award in the Engaged Scholar Award for Research category based on her work on the Charles and Frankie Pace Gospel Music in Pittsburgh Project.
The Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award was award to the School of Music’s Katelyn Best.
Best, teaching assistant professor of musicology, taught eight courses over the last year, engaging her students with field trips, guest lectures and well-thought out lessons.
“We feel that Dr. Best represents everything that is best about a teacher,” said Hope Koehler, FEPT Chair. “Her knowledge, affinity for her students, high standards, and willingness to meet students where they are and bring them to where they need to be exemplify quality teaching.”
Jerry McGonigle, professor of acting and dancing, received the 2023 Outstanding Faculty Service Award.
As Artistic Director of West Virginia Public Theatre, McGonigle has been the leader in the theatre company's survival and success. His efforts have led to professional, paid experience for School of Theatre & Dance students.
McGonigle also helps the School of Theatre & Dance continue its U/RTA agreement by providing professional connection to the school’s graduate program. Nominator Lee Blair said, “I don't know if WVPT would be around today without Professor McGonigle's tenacity and commitment.”
The Faculty Excellence in Internationalizing the College Award was given to Yoav Kaddar, professor of dance.
With dance roots embedded in Israeli Folk Dance and a long tenure of global travel, Kaddar believes dance is a global language.
“The power that dance has in bringing people together is part of my dance heritage and part of who I am as an artist and an educator,” Kaddar said. “Dance has taken me to faraway places. As a performer and master teacher, I have traveled from coast to coast in this country and internationally; from South America to Siberia in Russia, the Middle East and India. Wherever I go, wherever I land, Dance has not only taken me to faraway places but it has guided me and taught me about new cultures, new dance forms and new teaching modules.”
Kaddar has led dance abroad trips with students to Guatemala and will soon lead students on a dance-focused trip to Israel.
Adjunct Lecturer in Technical Art History Éowyn Kerr-Di Carlo was awarded for Adjunct Faculty Excellence.
Kerr-DiCarlo engages with students and demonstrates her excellence as a teacher says Nominator Jerry Habarth.
“Éowyn overcame various technical challenges in 2022 in adapting her objects-based course to a virtual classroom format. She utilized synchronous lectures, videos, podcasts, guest lectures, and use of a small USB digital microscope with Infrared and Ultraviolet capacity during her classes. Use of this technology helped strengthen and reinforce student learning related to artifact detail and investigations.”
In addition to teaching activity, Kerr-DiCarlo provided service contributions through guest lecturing for Studio Art for Art Historians, as a thesis committee member and as a guest speaker at the Summer Teachers Institute in Technical Art History.