COLUMBUS - Two Ohio State University faculty members will have the opportunity to gain enhanced professional growth and strengthened administrative skills as recipients of the university's 2000 Kathryn T. Schoen Awards.

Brenda Jo Brueggemann of COLUMBUS (43202), professor of English, and Teresa Y. Morishita of UPPER ARLINGTON (43221), associate professor and Extension poultry veterinarian in the Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine, were awarded grants of $2,500 and $1,500 respectively and were recently recognized at an August 10 luncheon with a presentation by Executive Vice President and Provost Ed Ray. The awards are presented, in alternate years, to women who are faculty members or administrative and professional staff at Ohio State.

"We are very proud of this year's Schoen Award recipients," said Ray. "Their proposals are solid, innovative, and very much in keeping with Dr. Schoen's intent of providing opportunities for women at Ohio State."

A leader in higher education, Schoen, then a member of the faculties of the colleges of Education, Medicine, and Social and Behavioral Sciences, chaired the 1970 university-wide study to assess the status of women at Ohio State. Now retired, she became the university's first woman vice president when she was appointed to lead educational services in 1978.

Brueggemann intends to use her grant to help develop a Disability Studies Initiative at Ohio State that she hopes will, in time, place the university among the nation's best campuses for disability studies, as one of the nation's most accessible and sensitive campuses for disabled persons, and as possibly the first humanities-oriented Disability Studies programs in the world. Brueggemann will visit four other campuses during the 2000-01 academic year to meet with faculty, staff and students at those universities who have been leaders in similar initiatives. Brueggeman is co-editor of Humanities: A Sourcebook for Disability Studies in Language and Literature, to be published soon by the Modern Language Association Press.

Morishita, who has served as chairperson of several statewide and national veterinary committees, symposia and workshops, hopes to gain additional leadership and administrative skills by using her grant to attend a series of national workshops. She intends to incorporate her new skills to strengthen two programs in Ohio State's College of Veterinary Medicine: the SOAR program, a summer program for veterinary students to design their own research program; and the Zoonotic Seminar Series, an outreach program offered to the human and veterinary medical communities in Ohio.

"It is particularly worth noting that both of the projects the recipients will be working on are associated with expanding the learning opportunities of others," said Ray. "Leadership is about service, and both Professor Brueggemann and Professor Morishita understand that."

This year's award recipients were chosen by E. Kay Halasek, director of the English department's First-Year Writing Program and a 1996 Schoen recipient; Dr. Judith S. Westman, associate dean of student affairs and medicine education in the College of Medicine and Public Health and a 1998 Schoen recipient; and Nancy M. Rudd, vice provost for academic policy and human resources.

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