The sixth annual Celebration of Faculty Excellence was held Tuesday, Feb. 18 in The Union featuring the faculty showcase, the Sewrey Faculty Colloquium, a David Fee memorial lecture and a banquet. 

According to Cristina Lammers, associate professor in the nursing department, it is a SDSU celebration of faculty achievement and work. 

The first part of the Faculty Excellence event was the faculty showcase which was held in the Crest and Pheasant Rooms of The Union from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. The faculty showcase featured 54 posters and showcase. It was open to the public. 

There were a variety of topics put on display by faculty. One faculty member Lacey A. McCormack, assistant professor in the health and nutrition department, was the first time she displayed her work at the showcase. Her project involved studying and reducing obesity. She said that many people do not know their own BMI. McCormack said that she is still collecting data. Her study is going on four months when she began in September. 

Another faculty member, Heidi Mennenga, an assistant professor in nursing, had a display showing her study of student perceptions on digital textbooks. She had collected data for over a year. Her bottom line was that students don’t like textbooks for a number of reasons. These included that it hurt their eyes, couldn’t resell the book and it caused them to be more distracted. This was Mennenga’s second time she presented at the faculty showcase. She also presented her work at other conferences. 

“I thought other faculty might be interested in my work,” Mennenga said.  

The other part of the Faculty excellence event was the Sewrey Faculty Colloquium in the Lewis & Clark room in The Union. The Colloquium is named after the Charles Louis Sewrey. A memorial endowment fund was established and funds scholarship and faculty development such as the Sewrey Faculty Colloquium. 

This year, the Sewrey Faculty Colloquium brought together the recent art and service projects published in four areas: creative/fine arts, research/scholarship, teaching/learning and service. There were four speakers, one in each area. 

The four speakers included Matthew James, assistant professor in the plan science department who spoke in the creative/fine arts category. Brian Logue, associate professor in chemistry and biochemistry spoke in the research/scholarship area. Diana Behl, assistant professor in visual arts, and David Cartrette, associate professor in chemistry and biochemistry spoke in the teaching/ learning category. Hesham Mahgoub, associate professor in civil and environmental engineering spoke on the service category.

The David Lee Memorial Lecture was the third part of the celebration presented by Mike Keller. He presented in the Lewis & Clark room in The Union. Keller is a professor in the English department and he spoke on the culture of distraction and the crisis of dispersed consciousness. 

Finally, there was a reception for faculty in the Volstorff Ballroom Lobby from 5 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. followed by the banquet and awards program. The banquet required reservations beforehand and was open to faculty. It featured faculty musical performance and presentation of major faculty awards.