Seven faculty members receive 2008-09 Sam Taylor Fellowships

Seven SMU faculty members have been awarded 2008-09 Sam Taylor Fellowships from the Sam Taylor Fellowship Fund of the Division of Higher Education, United Methodist General Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

The Sam Taylor Fellowships, funded by income from a portion of Taylor's estate, award up to $2,000 for full-time faculty members at United Methodist-related colleges and universities in Texas. Any full-time faculty member is eligible to apply for the Fellowships, which support research "advancing the intellectual, social, or religious life of Texas and the nation." Applications are evaluated on the significance of the project, clarity of the proposal, professional development of the applicant, value of the project to the community or nation, and the project's sensitivity to value questions confronting higher education and society.

The winning professors and their projects:

Ben Johnson, History, Dedman College, for a book project on the American environmental reform movement at the turn of the twentieth century.

Mark Kerins, Cinema-Television, Meadows School of the Arts, for transcriptions of interview tapes with film industry professionals, relating to his book project on digital sound production in cinema.

Nia Parson, Anthropology, Dedman College, for research in Chile on domestic violence and governmental systems under a government changing from dictatorship to democracy.

Pamela Patton, Art History, Meadows School of the Arts, to acquire photographs for publication in her book on visual imagery of the Christian-Jewish relationship in medieval Spain.

Lisa Pon, Art History, Meadows School of the Arts, for research in Rome on the fifteenth-century print Madonna of the Fire, as exemplar of relationships among locations, icons, and collective memory.

Simon Sargon, Music, Meadows School of the Arts, to compose a large-scale orchestral and choral requiem based on early Jewish and Christian texts.

Gabriela Vokic, Foreign Languages and Literatures, Dedman College, for research in Chile on structural position of speech sounds, with Spanish speakers acquiring English as a second language.

For more information on the Fellowships, contact Kathleen Hugley-Cook, director of the University's Office of National Fellowships and Awards.

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