Dialog, UA Faculty and Staff News

UA Professor Receives Prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship
Psychiatry Clinic Named for Mental Health Advocate
2002-2003 Tenures and Promotions

UA Professor Receives Prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship

Dr. Gary Taylor

Dr. Gary Taylor, professor of English and director of the endowed Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies in UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, has received a 2002 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, one of the most prestigious honors for academic achievement in the nation. Taylor is one of approximately 200 scholars selected nationwide from 3,500 nominees for the Guggenheim.

He is one of three UA professors to have received this fellowship in the last five years, all from the department of English. The Guggenheim Foundation awards fellowships to scientists, scholars and artists who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. In 2001 the organization awarded an average of $36,000 to its recipients.

Taylor has been at the center of literary research since 1985 when he discovered a previously unknown poem by William Shakespeare in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England. The discovery was made while Taylor served as general editor (with Stanley Wells) of "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works," published by Oxford University Press in 1986. The most thoroughly researched edition ever produced, it forms the basis of the popular Norton Shakespeare textbook.

His work has earned him a reputation for presenting new and controversial interpretations of Shakespeare’s work and the culture of the Renaissance. In his widely acclaimed 1996 book, "Cultural Selection," Taylor advanced a theory of cultural development based on biological theories of evolution to explain why some artistic works survive over time while others do not.

"Cultural Selection" is built on the ideas he developed in his 1989 book, "Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present." In it, Taylor examined the social, political and economic factors that contributed to Shakespeare’s fame. Taylor was both praised and criticized for suggesting that Shakespeare’s revered place in the literary canon was influenced by factors other than genius, and the book sparked considerable academic debate.

He is general editor, along with Dr. Phillip Beidler, UA professor of English, of "Signs of Race," a series to be launched later this year by Palgrave, which examines the relationship of race and ethnicity to the history of literature in English. One of the first volumes in the new series will be Taylor’s new book "Buying Whiteness: Race, Sex, Slavery," which asks, "When did people in England and American start calling themselves white and why?"

Prior to coming to UA in 1995, Taylor served on the faculties of Oxford University and Brandeis University.

Psychiatry Clinic Named for Mental Health Advocate

Dr. William Currey (left) and Betty Shirley

Dr. William Curry, dean of UA’s College of Community Health Sciences, and Tuscaloosa mental health advocate Betty Shirley look over plans for a new building for Capstone Medical Center.

The psychiatry clinic at the Capstone Medical Center has been named the Betty Shirley Clinic for Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine in honor of Tuscaloosa mental health advocate Betty Shirley

"Betty Shirley has been a longtime advocate of the services provided by the psychiatry clinic at the University. She is well known as a proponent for treatment and destigmatization of mental illness. We are delighted to name our clinic in her honor," said Dr. William Curry, dean of UA's College of Community Health Sciences.

The Tuscaloosa clinic is the outpatient facility of the department of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at UA’s College of Community Health Sciences, a clinical branch campus of the UA School of Medicine. The clinic specializes in comprehensive psychiatric evaluation; individual psychotherapy; marital, family and group therapy; psychopharmacology, and psychological testing.

2002-2003 Tenures and Promotions

Arts & Sciences

Art -- W. Lowell Baker, promoted to professor
Chemistry -- David Eugene Nikles, promoted to professor
English -- Robin Behn, promoted to professor; Diane Roberts, promoted to professor
Geology -- Chunmiao Zheng, promoted to professor
ISSR -- Debra M. McCallum, promoted to senior research scientist
Mathematics -- Pu Patrick Wang, promoted to professor
Modern Languages -- K. Barbara Fischer, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor
Philosophy -- James Otteson, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor
Political Science -- Carol Cassel, promoted to professor
Theatre -- Thomas Andrew Fitch, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor

Commerce and Business Administration

Accountancy -- Thomas L. Albright, promoted to professor; Gary Kenneth Taylor, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor
Economics -- Akram Temimi, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor
Management and Marketing -- David L. Mothersbaugh, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor

Communication and Information Science

Advertising and Public Relations -- Caryl A. Cooper, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor; Joseph Phelps, promoted to professor
Communication Studies -- Dexter B. Gordon, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor; David Roskos-Ewoldsen, promoted to professor
Telecommunication and Film -- Jeremy Butler, promoted to professor

Community Health Sciences

Community and Rural Medicine -- John Clifton Higginbotham, awarded tenure
Family Medicine -- Samuel G. Gaskins, promoted to professor

Education

Educational Leadership -- Natalie Adams, awarded tenure; David Dagley, promoted to professor
Interdisciplinary Teacher Education -- Carol A. Donovan, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor

Engineering

Metallurgical -- Giovanni Zangari, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor; Mark Weaver, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor

Nursing

Jena Clayton Barrett, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor

Social Work

Debra Nelson-Gardell, awarded tenure, promoted to associate professor

University Libraries

Collections Management -- Patricia Henderson, promoted to associate professor
Special Collections -- Jessica Lacher-Feldman, promoted to assistant professor
Reference Department -- Betty Bryce, promoted to professor