By Rebecca A. Doyle
Two undergraduate students and two faculty members will be honored at the Michigan Association of Governing Boards of State Universities’ (MAGB) 13th annual Higher Education Awards Convocation Wednesday (April 6) in Lansing.
Katherine M. Metres, a senior in the LS&A Honors Program, “has contributed to the life of this campus in a significant way by her work with the Arab-American Student Association and on the Michigan Daily editorial board,” wrote Donald R. Kinder when nominating her for the award. “Her passion for human rights, which sprang from her view of her own ethnic background, has become generalized and now extends to all peoples.
“She has a genuine desire to continue to affect human existence in a positive, proactive way,” added Kinder, who is interim chair of the Department of Political Science.
Marc A. Chennault is a senior in the School of Business Administration. In nominating him, Bethany L. Spotts, the School’s associate director of admissions, noted that as a freshman Chennault was “granted preferred admission into the master’s program based on the strength of his academic credentials. This was highly unusual.”
He is the recipient of the 3M Minority Scholarship award, the William J. Barnstrom Freshman Prize and the AICPA Scholarship. For the past year he has been a teaching assistant for the Principles of Accounting course in the Comprehensive Studies Program and has received excellent ratings from his 40 students.
Deborah Keller-Cohen, associate professor of linguistics, has been at the U-M since 1974. Her research on literacy in America “has ranged from language acquisition in children to literacy in contemporary American society,” wrote
Thomas Toon, director of the Program in Linguistics, in nominating Keller-Cohen for the award. “A national leader in this field, she organized an important conference on literacy that drew leading scholars from around the nation and gave rise to a 1993 book, Literacy: Interdisciplinary Conversations, which she edited.”
Keller-Cohen teaches a wide variety of courses and was director of the
English Composition Board in 1985–92.
Edward M. Gramlich, professor of economics and public policy, “is a pop-
ular and effective teacher of public finance, macroeconomics and benefit-cost analysis,” noted Alan Deardorff, chair of the Department of Economics, in nominating Gramlich. “His research has addressed the evaluation of public policies, tax policy, the federal deficit and fiscal relations between local, state and federal governments.”
Gramlich is co-author of nine books and more than 50 articles, and has served as chair of the Department of Economics and twice as director of the Institute of Public Policy Studies.
Each year, MAGB awards are made to two students and two faculty members from each of Michigan’s 15 four-year public universities. The committee that chose outstanding faculty from the University was chaired by Provost Gilbert R. Whitaker Jr. The student selection committee was chaired by Maureen A. Hartford, vice president for student affairs.
