• Clarion University of Pennsylvania presented an honorary doctor of laws degree to retired Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives K. Leroy Irvis (LAW ’54) during Clarion’s 2005 winter commencement ceremonies last month. Irvis was unable to attend because of illness, but his biographer, Pitt Associate Professor of History Laurence Glasco, accepted the honor on Irvis’ behalf.

• Finland’s University of Helsinki has announced that it will award an honorary doctorate this spring to Nicholas Rescher, University Professor of Philosophy at Pitt. This will be the seventh honorary degree bestowed on Rescher by universities on three continents in recognition of his contributions to philosophy, which date back to the early 1950s.

• The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette named a Pitt alumna, versatile local actress Sheila McKenna (FAS ’02), its Theatrical Performer of the Year for 2005.

The P-G also ranked the Pitt Repertory Theatre’s production of A Lie of the Mind No. 18 in its list of the top 20 Pittsburgh stage productions of 2005, while the Pitt Kuntu Repertory Theater’s staging of Sweet Thunder: The Billy Strayhorn Story was among the unranked “third 10” outstanding productions.

The P-G’s list of best actors included Kevin Brown for performances in several Kuntu Rep musicals, while the newspaper’s best supporting actresses list included Vivian Reed of the Kuntu Rep’s Bubbling Brown Sugar.

The P-G list of best directors included Yukihiro Goto, guest director of the Pitt Rep’s Rashomon, and Melanie Dreyer, assistant professor in Pitt’s theatre arts department, for the Pitt Rep’s A Lie of the Mind and for a non-Pitt show, barebones productions’ The Glory of Living.

Among the P-G’s best costume directors were Don Mangone, associate professor and head of design and production in the theatre arts department, for the Pitt Rep’s Rashomon and Pericles, and Betty Pendleton and Heddie Thomas for the Kuntu Rep’s Bubbling Brown Sugar. Among the musicians honored by the P-G were the bands in the Kuntu Rep stagings of Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Sweet Thunder, and keyboardist/music director Neal Tate for the Kuntu Rep’s Jelly’s Last Jam.

The P-G also cited Pitt Rep set designer Julie Allardice-Ray for her Rashomon set, and Pitt theatre arts Ph.D. candidate Rick Kemp for his supporting performance in a non-Pitt production, Quantum Theater’s I.D.

• The Cooperative Education Division (CED) of the American Society for Engineering Education has bestowed its Alvah K. Borman award on Maureen Barsic, director of the School of Engineering’s cooperative education program—a partnership between employers and Pitt that enables engineering students to complement classroom training with additional technical knowledge, hands-on experience, and financial remuneration.

The CED presents up to two awards each year to division members who have made sustained, honorable, and meritorious contributions to the promotion of the philosophy and practice of cooperative education in engineering and/or engineering technology. The award consists of a $500 honorarium, a plaque, and a certificate of achievement. The award is named for the late Alvah Borman, dean of graduate placement services at Northeastern University.

• Scott Mark, assistant professor of pharmacy and therapeutics in Pitt’s School of Pharmacy and director of pharmacy in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, has been named to a two-year term on the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Foundation research advisory panel.

The foundation fosters research in medication safety and clinical pharmacy practice innovations. The foundation’s research advisory panel consists of pharmacy research experts who help to guide the foundation in its research efforts and assist the board and staff in setting research priorities and identifying funding opportunities.

• Sandra Quinn in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) has received the Society for Public Health Education’s 2005 Health Educator Mentor of the Year Award for her outstanding contributions to mentoring young public health professionals. Quinn is the associate dean for student affairs and education in GSPH and an associate professor in the school’s Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences.

• GSPH last month honored the first recipients of the Bernard D. Goldstein Student Award in Environmental Health Disparities and Public Health Practice.

Established in 2005 by GSPH Dean Goldstein and his wife, Russellyn Carruth, an adjunct professor in Pitt’s School of Law, the Goldstein Award supports two GSPH students—one from the school’s Center for Minority Health who is exploring the environmental causes of health disparities, and the other student from GSPH’s Center for Public Health Practice who is focusing on an area in public health practice. The award provides partial support for tuition.

K. Leroy Irvis Fellow Roderick L. Harris was nominated by the Center for Minority Health for his outstanding research and application of information technology in creating model curriculum for cultural competency training, developing evaluation instruments, and creating a toolbox of Web-based resources for public health and healthcare utilization data. Harris is a doctoral student in GSPH’s Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences and a graduate research assistant in the school’s Center for Minority Health. Harris will be working with the Center’s Healthy Black Family Project to partner with PA CleanWays on their Illegal Dump Survey results and also will develop an awareness program focused on environmental factors affecting the health of African Americans in Pittsburgh’s East End neighborhoods.

Diane L. Downie was nominated by the Center for Public Health Practice for her work on the study, “Public Health Workforce Recruitment, Retention, and Promotion in the Civil Service System,” headed by 2004 Pfizer Faculty Scholar Award Recipient Patricia M. Sweeney. Downie, who is a master’s candidate in the Department of Infectious Disease and Microbiology and a research assistant in the Center for Public Health Practice, is identifying the extent to which our nation’s state health departments are utilizing public health core competencies in their personnel selection and promotion processes. Downie is simultaneously pursing a certificate in the Public Health Preparedness and Disaster Response Certificate program.

“I am very proud of and impressed by the first recipients of this award,” Goldstein said. “Both Roderick and Diane possess the passion and commitment to public health that Russellyn and I had envisioned when we created this gift. I am quite confident that the work these students are doing will advance the much needed work in these two core areas in public health.”

• Pitt Professor of English David Bartholomae will receive an Exemplar Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) during the conference’s meeting in Chicago, March 22-25. With a membership of about 15,000, the CCCC represents scholars working in composition, rhetoric, pedagogy, and literacy. According to the CCCC, the Exemplar Award honors members whose work “represents the highest ideals of scholarship, teaching, and service to the entire profession.”