Four faculty members at the University of Colorado at Boulder will be the first to receive the newly established Big 12 Faculty Fellowships to work in their areas of expertise at another Big 12 school of their choice.
The recipients were announced by Wallace Loh, vice chancellor for academic affairs, who first announced the fellowships last December.
The fellowships were established, Loh said, by the chief academic officers of the Big 12 who believe our member schools should be more than an athletic conference -- we should also be connected by academic endeavors.
Recipients are Assistant Professor Luc Bovens of philosophy, Professor Robert Hohlfelder of history, Associate Professor Robert Mazzeo of kinesiology and Professor and department Chair Barbara Voorhies of anthropology.
Each received $2,500 for a two-week residency at another Big 12 institution to conduct research or creative work, collaborate on curriculum development or consult with colleagues and students. The grant covers travel and living expenses for the duration of the fellowship.
Some of the visiting fellows will offer lectures or engage in other professional activities of benefit to the host and the home institutions.
Bovens will work this summer with a colleague at the University of Oklahoma on research resulting in a journal article about logic and paradox in philosophical issues. Bovens research is complementary to work being done at Norman, and the visit may mark the beginning of a more extensive collaboration between the two institutions.
Hohlfelder, whose underwater archaeology explorations are well-known, will work this month with a colleague in classics at the University of Oklahoma on training students in hands-on fieldwork to be done at the ancient site of Caesarea Maritima (Israel), where Hohlfelder worked from 1978 to 1992. He will present a public lecture on his 1996 fieldwork at Aperlae, Turkey, to promote the growing interest in classical archaeology at Oklahoma.
Mazzeo will visit Kansas State University in May to work on experimental surgical techniques developed there to study obstruction of blood flow to the heart and congestive heart failure in rats. The experience will benefit students and colleagues in Mazzeos CU-Boulder laboratory by providing training that will enable them to be competitive in procuring funding and producing research results.
Voorhies will work in August at Texas A&M University at College Station on a joint project in paleobotany addressing the nature of ancient human plant use at the onset of agriculture in an area of the American tropical lowlands, now part of the coast of southern Mexico.