October 03, 2005

Otteson Receives Atlas Economic Research Foundation Award

Dr. James Otteson

Dr. James Otteson, chair of the philosophy department, has been awarded the seventh in a series of prizes from the Fund for the Study of Spontaneous Orders at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.

The $10,000 prize is for scholars working outside the traditional areas of economic study whose work is informed by an Austrian economic perspective. Atlas’s Fund for the Study of Spontaneous Order, supported by an anonymous donor, rewards and promotes the work of scholars that study the relevance of the spontaneous order to disciplines other than economics.

“The ‘spontaneous order’ social theory of Austrian economics holds that large-scale human social institutions — like law, language, and even morality — are the unintentional result of numberless decisions made by individual actors,” Otteson said. “The individuals were not intending to create larger institutions, but their localized actions nevertheless did so.”

In his book “Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life,” Otteson argues that spontaneous order social theory’s first systematic treatment was by Adam Smith in the 18th century, then went on to become a central theoretical tool in Austrian economics. He is working on a book in which he argues that the spontaneous-order theories developed during the Scottish Enlightenment shaped the Darwinian theory of evolution and some current research in linguistics, evolutionary psychology and experimental economics.

Otteson is a College of Arts and Sciences Leadership Board Faculty Fellow. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and his master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin and the University of Chicago, respectively.

Nursing Professor Honored with National Teaching Award

The American Association of Critical Care Nurses awarded Dr. Angela Smith Collins, associate professor of nursing, the 2005 National Excellence in Teaching Award.

Given annually to three professors of nursing from across the country, the award recognizes those said to exemplify the qualities of the AACN presidential themes of collaboration, compassion, ethics, mentoring, presence, self-knowledge and truth.

Collins serves UA by teaching and providing advanced practice nursing resources throughout Alabama. The Greater Birmingham Chapter of AACN and the dean of UA’s Capstone College of Nursing nominated her for the award.

Collins earned undergraduate degrees in nursing from Samford University in 1976 and 1977, respectively, and earned her master’s in nursing from Medical College of Georgia in 1978. She completed her doctorate in nursing at The University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1991.

Collins, who has 29 years of experience in clinical nursing and 11 years of experience as a surgical clinical nurse specialist, has published in the areas of cardiovascular pharmacology and pathophysiology and also speaks locally, regionally and nationally on topics of clinical relevance to post-anesthesia care and gastrointestinal physiology.

Active in the American Association of Critical Care Nursing, Collins has been honored over the years as the recipient of the Baptist Health System of Alabama Mission Awards of Excellence and Resourcefulness in both 1998 and 2000.

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