OSU board approves personnel actions

Friday, April 22, 2005

The Oklahoma State University/A&M Board of Regents approved several personnel actions during its April 22 meeting on the campus of OSU-Oklahoma City.

Dr. Gail E. Gates, professor and interim associate vice president for Academic Affairs since 2002, was named professor and associate vice president for Undergraduate Education.

She received her bachelor's degree in food and nutrition and her master's degree in nutrition, both from Texas Tech University, and her Ph.D. in nutrition from Pennsylvania State University. Before joining the OSU nutritional sciences faculty in 1996, she was an associate professor and directed the coordinated program in dietetics at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she also had served as an adjunct faculty member in the School of Health Related Professional; was coordinator of the Nutrition Peer Education Program at Penn State; and was a coordinator and assistant professor of dietetics at South Dakota State University.

Gates was named the 2004 Distinguished Alumna in the TTU College of Human Sciences, and in 2000 received an OSU Regents Distinguished Teaching Award for the College of Human Environmental Sciences. She is a member of Sigma Xi, Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Upsilon Omicron honoraries.

Dr. James P. Wicksted — interim head of the Department of Physics and professor and Noble Research Fellow in Optical Materials — was named head of the department. He received his bachelor's cum laude from New York University, and his master's and Ph.D. degrees from the City University of New York, all in physics.

He joined the OSU faculty in 1985, and was named a Noble Research Fellow in 1987. He has served as associate director of EPSCoR an as director of the Department of Energy EPSCoR Program since February 2004.

His research interests include using noninvasive confocal Raman spectroscopy to detect hydration changes of ocular tissue as well as to sense the pharmacokinetic behavior associated with ophthalmic drugs applied topically to the eye, and he also is working on developing Bragg gratings for applications in wavelength division filtering, optical storage, and for fiber optic temperature and pressure sensor applications.

The board approved a title change for Dr. Robert E. Whitson from professor, dean and director of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources to vice president of Agricultural Programs, dean of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, and professor. The new title is more in line with the scope and duties at one of the nation’s premier land-grant universities in one of the nation’s top agricultural states.

Whitson, who was named to head OSU’s agriculture division at the March regents meeting, comes to OSU from Texas A&M. He brings vast experience and outstanding leadership skills to OSU and his hiring has been widely praised by Oklahoma agricultural leaders.

New Appointments

Jayson L. Lusk, Willard R. Sparks Endowed Chair and professor, agricultural economics
Hongbo Yu, assistant professor, geography
Anne-Marie Condacse, assistant professor, music
Refugia L. Lopez Compton, assistant professor, music
Richard A. Novak II, assistant professor, music
George M. Speed Jr., assistant professor, music
David M. Neal, professor, political science
Scott Johnson, assistant professor, management
Susan E. Little, Krull Endowed Chair and professor, pathobiology
Kurt J. Budke, head coach, women’s basketball

Changes in Appointment

David K. Lewis, from associate professor, adjunct professor and director, environmental science undergraduate program, to associate professor and adjunct professor, forestry
Jeffory A. Hattey, from professor to professor and director, environmental sciences program, plant and soil sciences
Preston S. Carrier, from manager to director, software services

OSU Center for Health Sciences

Sherril M. Stone from director of research to director of research and assistant professor, family medicine

Leave of Absence

Eduardo A. Misawa, mechanical and aerospace engineering, to complete a temporary assignment as program director in the Division of Civil and Mechanical Systems, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia, May 16, 2005, to May 15, 2006

Sabbaticals

Kathleen Kelsen, agricultural education, communication and 4-H, 100% sabbatical to study and gain experience in quantitative and evaluative research methodologies at the Division of the Bureau of Educational Research, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, July 1-Dec. 31
Marcella Sirhandi, art, 50% sabbatical to complete research for the book “Contemporary Miniature Painting in Pakistan” at the Spencer Art Reference Library at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri
H.K. Dai, computer science, 50% sabbatical to research theoretical computer science with an emphasis on computational complexity and resource complexity tradeoffs, with the attempt to identify and analyze the mathematical structures embedded in the problems, from Sept. 1, 2005, to May 31, 2006
Edward Jones, English, 100% sabbatical to begin editorial work on a volume of the state papers of John Milton, which has been commissioned by Oxford University Press at the Butler Library of Columbia University, Missouri, from Jan. 17-May 31, 2006
Martin Wallen, English, 100% sabbatical to conduct research on dogs portrayed in the art and literature of England from 1650 to 1840 and their relation to social and cultural history in England, Jan. 17-May 31, 2006
Dennis L. Seager, foreign languages, 100% sabbatical to research ambivalence as a trope of resistance in the context of postcolonial narrative in the English, French, and Spanish speaking Caribbean at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean StudiesUniversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Jan. 17-May 31, 2006
James F. Cooper, history, 100% sabbatical to conduct research in the unpublished works of the early American theologian Jonathan Edwards at the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, Sept. 1, 2005, to Jan. 16, 2006
Richard C. Rohrs, history, 100% sabbatical to complete his monograph comparing the Antebellum political culture in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Newport, Rhode Island, Jan. 17-May 31, 2006
Jami A. Fullerton, journalism and broadcasting, 100% sabbatical to complete the research and writing of a book that broadly examines new approaches to U.S. public diplomacy since Sept. 11, 2001, from Sept. 1, 2005, to Jan. 16, 2006
Leticia Barchini, mathematics, 100% sabbatical to conduct irreducible unitary representations geometrically and to describe representations via their invariants at Cornell University and the Institut fuer Mathematik, Bochum Universitaet, Germany, from Sept. 1, 2005, to Jan. 16, 2006
William H. Jaco, mathematics, 50% sabbatical to research low-dimensional topology, in particular toward the understand and ultimate classification of 3-manifolds at The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, from Sept. 1, 2005, to May 31, 2006
D. Allen Scott, music, 100% sabbatical to conduct qualitative archival research in Poland as part of a study of the history and development of Reformation and Counter-Reformation liturgies and sacred music in the duchy of Silesia from c. 1520 to 1648, from Sept. 1, 2005, to Jan. 16, 2006
Xincheng Xie, physics, 100% sabbatical to carry out joint research in spintronics, a promising field for quantum information and quantum computing at University of Texas at Austin and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sept. 1, 2005, to Jan. 16, 2006
Robert E. England, political science, 100% sabbatical to gather and analyze data focusing on women and minority representation in local, state, and national institutions at Loyola University in Chicago, Sept. 1, 2005, to Jan. 16, 2006
Charles I. Abramson, psychology, 100% sabbatical to create a new program of research investigating the plastic behavior of the vectors of Chagas’ disease in Venezuela, Jan. 17-May 31, 2006

Retirements

Nicholas W. Bormann, art, May 9
George E. Arquitt, sociology, May 31
Wayne C. Turner, industrial engineering, June 1