Notable

Three SIUC faculty members are among the 52 in the state to receive awards from the Illinois Arts Council for 2008.

Pinckney Benedict

Pinckney Benedict, a professor of creative writing in the English department, and David Rush, a playwriting professor in the theater department, both received Artist Fellowships, a $7,000 grant. Jacinda Townsend, assistant professor of creative writing in the English department, won a $700 finalist award.

David Rush

The Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, named in total 38 fellowship winners and 14 finalist awards for 2008, handing out $266,000 and $9,800 in grants, respectively. The grants recognize outstanding work and commitment within the arts, according to IAC descriptions of the grants.

Jacinda Townsend

The Artist Fellowships Program recognizes 12 artistic disciplines. The IAC funds fellowships in a rotating cycle. This year, the program focused on choreography, crafts, ethnic and folk arts, media arts and new performance forms as well as prose writing and playwriting. There were 496 applicants total. Juries for each discipline select the fellowship and finalist winners.

Other art disciplines eligible for fellowships and finalist awards in alternating years are: interdisciplinary/computer art, music composition, photography, poetry and visual arts.

Gayla M. Stoner, who earned a master's degree in Workforce Education from SIUC in 2007, is the recipient of the 2008 Illinois Council on Continuing Higher Education Research Grant. Stoner will present her research results, "Faculty Support and Recruitment for Online Courses at Southern Illinois University Carbondale," at the 2009 ICCHE conference in Chicago in February 2009. Stoner is an administrative assistant I in SIUC's Division of Continuing Education.

The Harrisburg Primary Care Group and its family medicine physicians who serve as preceptor teachers for SIU School of Medicine are being honored by SIU's Department of Family and Community Medicine (FCM).  The physicians are being recognized for the contributions they've made in educating its medical students.

Drs. Matt and Laura Winkleman, Dr. Larry Jones and Dr. Steve Knight of Harrisburg Primary Care Group are being recognized by FCM faculty physicians from Springfield.  The group is receiving a "Center of Excellence"award from SIU for having served as a preceptor site for its School of Medicine since 1988.  SIU is recognizing a handful of sites for providing its students with a broad experience in the family medicine specialty and for serving as strong models for a good family medicine medical practice.

"The Harrisburg physicians and staff have provided an excellent teaching experience for our preceptorship program and have consistently received very favorable student feedback,"says Dr. Amber J. Barnhart, associate professor of family and community medicine.  "We depend on wonderful, experienced physicians like these for opportunities for our students to develop their medical knowledge in an office setting while working under the watchful eye of the supervising physicians.”

Since its beginning in 1981, nearly 2,000 SIU medical students have participated in the program, which is offered by the medical school's Department of Family and Community Medicine.