Six hundred college and university educators from 15 countries will converge on Indiana University Bloomington this week to share research and insights on what makes for effective teaching and learning. The International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) will have its annual conference October 22-25 (Thursday-Sunday) on the IU Bloomington campus -- the same campus where the society had its launch five years ago.

The time has changed for an Indiana University Bloomington program recognizing the winner of the Tracy M. Sonneborn Award and the inaugural IU Provost's Professor. The program will start at 5:30 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 8) in the Frangipani Room of the Indiana Memorial Union. David E. Clemmer, the Robert and Marjorie Mann Chair of Chemistry, is 2009 recipient of the Sonneborn Award. Lisa Pratt, IU professor of geological sciences, is the first IU Provost's Professor.

David E. Clemmer, the Robert and Marjorie Mann Chair of Chemistry at Indiana University Bloomington and the 2009 recipient of the prestigious Tracy M. Sonneborn Award at IU, and Lisa Pratt, IU professor of geological sciences and the inaugural IU Provost's Professor, will be recognized at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 8 (Thursday), in the Indiana Memorial Union's Frangipani Room. Clemmer will present the Sonneborn Lecture, "Measurements for the Masses," shortly after 5 p.m. The lecture and a reception afterward are free and open to the public.

Indiana University announced that 18 entering freshmen and two current IU students will join more than 420 others who have been named Wells Scholars since the first class enrolled in 1990. The scholarship, created in honor of the late IU Chancellor Herman B Wells, ranks among the most competitive and prestigious awards offered by any American university.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded more than $140,000 through the prestigious Sawyer Seminars to Indiana University faculty members. The award supports a year-long seminar series titled "Rupture and Flow: The Circulation of Technoscientific Facts and Objects."

The Indiana University Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs announced today (June 23) the appointment of Anne P. Massey as associate vice provost for faculty and academic affairs at IU Bloomington. Massey is the dean's research professor and professor of information systems at the IU Kelley School of Business.

Four new multidisciplinary ventures have been selected by the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs to provide funding for this academic year. Proposals were received from a broad range of inter-coordinated departments and schools demonstrating innovative and intellectually stimulating projects.

IU Bloomington selects faculty members each year with distinguished leadership ability to participate in the Academic Leadership Program (ALP), sponsored by the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. This year's ALP Fellows are Joyce Alexander, Martin McCrory, Jane McLeod and Sara C. Pryor.

Indiana University Bloomington biologist Mike Wade has been selected to receive the American Society of Naturalists' 2009 Sewall Wright Award. Named after the influential population geneticist, the award recognizes a "senior but still active investigator who is making fundamental contributions to ... promoting the conceptual unification the biological sciences," according to the society.

Seven Indiana University Bloomington faculty have received 2009 Summer Instructional Development Fellowships from the offices of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs to develop specialized and innovative courses. They are Sonya Atalay in anthropology; Colleen Ryan-Scheutz and Kelly Sax in French and Italian; Beth Samuelson in literacy, language and culture education; Kalpana Shankar in informatics; Kay Connelly in computer science; and Rex Sprouse in Germanic studies and second language studies.

Eight Indiana University graduate schools and programs are ranked among the nation's top 25 by U.S. News and World Report magazine in its latest annual report, "America's Best Graduate Schools."

Indiana University Bloomington Provost Karen Hansen and Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs Tom Gieryn have announced that two Indiana University Bloomington professors will receive prestigious university awards. David E. Clemmer, the Robert and Marjorie Mann Chair of Chemistry, will receive the 2009 Tracy M. Sonneborn Award, and Lisa Pratt, professor of geological sciences, will be named the inaugural Provost's Professor.

Candy Gunther Brown, an associate professor in the Indiana University Bloomington Department of Religious Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded a $150,000 grant to pursue research on divine healing practices and their involvement in globalization.

The William T. Patten Foundation, under the auspices of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs, announced the Patten Lecture Series for 2009-2010. Lecturers will be Henry Louis Gates Jr., Andrew H. Knoll, and W. J. T. Mitchell.

Should sociologists be involved in research on the genetics of illness and disease? A recent issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education recognized Indiana University Distinguished and Chancellor's Professor of Sociology Bernice Pescosolido for her research on alcoholism.

A newly-arrived mathematician to Indiana University has been named among 118 young scientists, economists and mathematicians as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. Ciprian Demeter, 33, will receive a $50,000 research grant from the Sloan Foundation, which since 1955 has made awards to young researchers having gone on to win a cumulative 38 Nobel Prizes and 14 Fields Medals, considered the highest honor in mathematics.

The Office of the Vice Provost for Faculties and Academic Affairs announces the winners of this year's Fran Snygg arts awards. Two awards were established in honor of Snygg, professor of modern dance in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, associate dean of the faculties, and founder of Arts Week. In recognizing her contributions, an Endowment Fund was created in 1998 and an annual Grant for Artistic Collaboration was created in 2002.

Two new teaching awards related to sustainability and environmental literacy -- the Sustainability Course Development Fellowships and the Sustainability and Environmental Literacy Leadership Award -- have been awarded to IU Bloomington faculty by the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs.

Recipients of the Outstanding Junior Faculty Award this year are Marco Arnaudo, French and Italian; Beth Gazley, Public and Environmental Affairs; Scott Herring, English; Ted Striphas, Communication and Culture; and Haixu Tang, Informatics. Each has received $14,500 to support his or her research and creative activity.

Werner Sollors, one of the foremost Americanists today, will present two lectures at Indiana University Bloomington next week. The Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English and professor of African and African American studies from Harvard University, Sollors will speak on "African American Intellectuals and Europe between the Two World Wars" on Jan. 20 (Tuesday) and "'Heil, Johnny': Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair or The Denazification of Erika von Schlütow" on Jan. 22 (Thursday). Both lectures are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Chemistry 122.

Indiana University Bloomington Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson announced today (Jan. 8) that Thomas F. Gieryn has been appointed to the new position of vice provost for faculty and academic affairs. Gieryn is Rudy Professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at IU Bloomington.

Meredith West, recipient of this year's Tracy M. Sonneborn Award, will lecture on "Observing Birds Observing Birds" on Friday, Nov. 14 at 4 p.m. in Indiana University's Alumni Hall, with a reception immediately following in the Federal Room, both in the Indiana Memorial Union. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Classicist James O'Donnell, provost at Georgetown University, will lecture on "Two Hundred Years Is a Long Time (for a historian), or, What Should Historians Write About?" on Tuesday, Oct. 28, and "Ten Years Is a Long Time (on the Internet), or, What Will Cyberspace Make of the Humanities?" on Thursday, Oct. 30, as part of the William T. Patten Lecture Series. Both lectures will take place in Ballantine Hall room 109 at 7:30 p.m., at Indiana University Bloomington.

IU Bloomington selects faculty members with distinguished leadership ability to participate in the Academic Leadership Program (ALP), sponsored by the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) -- a consortium of the 11 universities of the Big Ten conference plus the University of Chicago.

The 2008-09 Horizons of Knowledge Lecture series kicks off Wednesday, September 24 with "A Warsaw Story: Polish-Jewish Relations in the First World War" by Robert Blobaum from West Virginia University. The lecture will be at 5:00 p.m. in the Indiana Memorial Union (IMU) Faculty Room of the University Club. Sponsors of the talk are the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program, Polish Studies Center, Department of History and Russian and East European Institute.