The recent selection of chemist Todd Martinez as a 2005 MacArthur Foundation Fellow was a reminder of how truly outstanding the faculty are in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Nearly half have been nationally recognized for their accomplishments through induction into national academies and with national and international honors. Faculty are members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Science, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and the American Council of Learned Societies. Forty are fellows in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Among the many honors the faculty have received are the National Medal of Science, Hubbell Award, MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching U.S. Professors of the Year Award, France's Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes académiques, and Guggenheim, Sloan, Packard, National Endowment for the Humanities, Medieval Academy of America, and Fulbright Fellowships. One faculty member is the only woman and second American to have won the Spendiarov Prize of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In one recent year alone, our faculty garnered both a Nobel and a Crafoord. The latter is the equivalent of a Nobel for fields that didn't exist when the Nobels were founded.
Our humanities and social sciences faculty are nationally sought after to serve as editors of well-known traditional journals and groundbreaking new ones including the Journal of American Literary History, Journal of Women's History, Slavic Review, American Journal of Primatology, and Ethos.
Shortly before chemist Todd Martinez learned that he was named a 2005 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, his colleague, Paul Hergenrother, was notified that he will be named in the October 2005 issue of MIT's Technology Review as a top technology innovator. The discovery by geologist Xiaodong Song that Earth's core rotates faster than does the planet was named as one of most important scientific discoveries in the 20th century by Discover magazine.
We could go on and on. More importantly, though, we know the faculty will continue on this path of excellence. It's a tradition in the college and throughout U. of I.
