Notable

Stephen D. Ebbs

Stephen D. Ebbs, associate professor of plant biology, is the recipient of the award as Outstanding Faculty Member Teaching in the University Core Curriculum. He received a $2,000 award and a plaque during a ceremony hosted by John M. Dunn, provost and vice chancellor.

In addition, Ebbs' photo and biographical sketch are featured on the front of the core curriculum's home page.

A Benton native, he earned a bachelor's in biology at McKendree College in 1990 and his master's and doctoral degrees in environmental toxicology at Cornell University in 1995 and 1997, respectively.

He's taught entry-level biology classes for more than a decade. He also maintains an active research program that examines the impacts of environmental contaminants on plants, specifically with respect to the mechanisms plants use to tolerate or detoxify such contaminants.

Undergraduates working in his laboratory contribute to his research efforts and learn a variety of modern scientific techniques.

The University Core Curriculum also honored two of its graduate teaching assistants, Rebecca Evon Hawkins and Michael D. Hernandez Jr. Both doctoral students received $500. As a whole, graduate teaching assistants teach one-third of core curriculum courses.

Hawkins is one of two instructional assistants to the director of writing studies in the Department of English. She teaches an English composition course for as many as 2,800 first-year students each year. She has also written handbooks, helped design Web pages and serves as a peer mentor to fellow graduate students.

Hernandez, whose home department is anthropology, also teaches in women's studies and museum studies. In particular, Hernandez successfully created a new core curriculum course this year, "The Anthropology of Latino/a Cultures," a course created in response to requests from the Latino/a community. Hernandez stepped in to develop the curriculum two weeks before classes began when the original instructor left the University.