With fall upon us, it's time to ring in the new academic year and recognize accomplishments from last year. The President's Welcoming Ceremony, to be held Wednesday, Sept. 7, will provide all staff and faculty members the opportunity to hear President Stephen Jordan's vision for Metro State as the preeminent public baccalaureate college in the country and to acknowledge their colleagues who are being recognized with Distinguished Service, Excellence in Teaching and Golden Key awards.

Distinguished Service awards will be presented to faculty members Joan L. M. Foster, Alain D. Ranwez and Robert Mock, administrator John P. Cochran and staff member Gloria Kennison.

Foster, chair and professor of biology, has served as Faculty Senate president (2001-04) and currently serves on the senate's Executive Committee and President's Council, among many other committees. She is also heading the Search Advisory Committee for the Provost/Vice President position. Ranwez, professor of French, revamped the entire French curriculum 25 years ago and continues to modify the program to keep it current. He also created the college's Honors Program and is the founding faculty advisor for the Metro State Chapter of the Golden Key International Honour Society. Mock, professor of aerospace science, established the department's World Indoor Airport (WIA). Mock served as department chair for ten years and as dean of the School of Professional Studies for five years.

Cochran, interim dean of the School of Business and professor of economics, was department chair for more than ten years. He was named the 2002 Outstanding Researcher/Scholar by the Golden Key International Honour Society for his voluminous research productivity. Kennison, administrative assistant III for the Department of History, started at Metro State in 1979 as secretary for the Speech Department. She moved to the History Department in 1990 and has helped the Metro State Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society, gain national recognition.

The Faculty Senate Excellence in Teaching awards will go to Robert T. Schatz and Bruce J. Degi. Schatz, associate professor of psychology, teaches by providing a broad view of psychology that highlights the assumptions underpinning psychological inquiry, while at the same time emphasizing the practical relevance of psychology for students in their daily lives. Degi, associate professor of English, requires his freshmen English students to spend the entire semester "researching, thinking about, reacting to and ultimately becoming genuine experts in the Japanese American internment experience of World War II."

The Golden Key International Honour Society award-winners are Cynthia Church and Madison Holloway (for Outstanding Full-Time Faculty), Donald Redifer and Nicole Withrow-McDonald (for Outstanding Part-Time Faculty) and Adolph Grundman (for Outstanding Researcher/Scholar). Church, associate professor of biology, teaches zoology, parasitology, genetics and general biology online. Church actively supports student research and presentation at the annual Rocky Mountain Conference of Parasitologists and leads study-abroad trips to Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands. Holloway, professor of management, has developed a system to help students do competent research and write papers in one third to one half of the time it would otherwise take them. Redifer, adjunct faculty member in the Department of Technical Communications, is an expert in the field of video editing and set up the department's video lab. He continually revises the curriculum in his video editing courses to reflect changes in the industry. Withrow-McDonald, adjunct faculty member in the Department of Health Professions, teaches courses in nutrition and is a registered dietitian who works at the Children's Hospital of Denver. She brings up-to-date knowledge on nutrition and treatment methods for malnutrition to her teaching. Grundman, professor of history and director of the Honors Program, has taught many different subjects in his 28 years at Metro State, including sports history, which led to the research necessary for his recent book, "The Golden Age of Amateur Basketball: The AAU Tournament, 1921-1968" (2004: University of Nebraska Press).

The President's Welcoming Ceremony will be held from 7:30-9:30 a.m. on Historic Ninth Street Park. Breakfast will be served, with the ceremony set to begin at 8:15 a.m.