College of Arts & Sciences Faculty Receive Awards
“In Arts & Sciences, we are lucky to have such outstanding faculty across all of our disciplines,” said John Dudley, Ph.D., dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. “Through the generosity of our donors and their commitment to the values of the liberal arts, the college proudly recognizes several of our colleagues each year with these awards.”
Blair & Linda Tremere Professorship in the Humanities
Prentiss Clark, Ph.D., was awarded the Blair & Linda Tremere Professorship in the Humanities. In 2016, USD alumni Blair and Linda Tremere generously created named professorships to reward teaching excellence in the College of Arts & Sciences. All recipients of a Blair & Linda Tremere professorship must demonstrate consistently excellent teaching and mentoring – measured through objective criteria such as student course evaluations, the range of courses taught, curricular innovation and peer evaluation of teaching.
Clark is an associate professor in the Department of English. She received the Belbas-Larson Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2019 and the Monsignor James Doyle Humanities Teaching Award in 2018. Her research and teaching interests include U.S. literature, literature and philosophy, aesthetics, and the craft of writing. She is the author of “Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Literary Companion” and is currently working on a book project on Ralph Waldo Emerson, W. E. B. DuBois and James Baldwin.
Richard and Sharon Cutler Awards in Liberal Arts
Richard and Sharon Cutler of Sioux Falls established these awards with a generous contribution in 2003 to reward outstanding College of Arts & Sciences faculty and to promote the liberal arts at USD. The Cutler Awards are given annually to three faculty members who advance liberal arts education through both teaching and research. The Cutler Awards in Liberal Arts are given out in each of the three divisions of the college: humanities, science and mathematics, and social sciences.
Molly Rozum, Ph.D., received the Cutler Award in the humanities division. Rozum is an associate professor in the Department of History and is the Ronald M. Nelson Distinguished Professor. Rozum’s research and teaching interests include the North American West, gender, U.S. women’s history and the Great Plains. She is the author of “Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains” and “Canadian Prairies.”
Jeff Wesner, Ph.D., received the Cutler Award in the science and mathematics division. Wesner is an associate professor in the Department of Biology. He teaches a range of courses from introductory biology to environmental science. Through the study of aquatic insects, his research examines how seemingly separate ecosystems like rivers and forests are connected. He has published 30 articles, two book chapters, and one textbook, and his work has been supported by $1.1 million in external research funds, including three awards from the National Science Foundation.
Tom Mrozla, Ph.D., received the Cutler Award in the social sciences division. Mrozla is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and teaches in the criminal justice studies program. He is the co-author of “Policing: The Essentials,” which uses contemporary scholarship to focus on the current climate of policing and criminal justice. His research and teaching interests include criminology, rural policing, fear of crime and personal safety.
Blair and Linda Tremere Faculty Service Award
Timothy Schorn, Ph.D., J.D., LLM, was presented with the Blair and Linda Tremere Faculty Service Award, which is given annually to a single faculty member in the College of Arts & Sciences who has demonstrated outstanding public service to the local community or to the state of South Dakota in the previous calendar year.
Schorn is the coordinator of the international studies program and an associate professor in the Department of Political Science. His research and teaching interests include international human rights, international law and Middle Eastern politics. In May 2018, he retired after nearly 24 years of combined service in the U.S. Army and the South Dakota Army National Guard and recently joined Vermillion Fire/EMS as an emergency medical technician. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Friends of South Dakota Public Broadcasting, and through many years of membership, has held multiple positions in Rotary International.
Johnson Family Outstanding Instructor Award
Cheyenne Marco, Ph.D., was presented with the Johnson Family Outstanding Instructor Award, which is made possible through an annual gift from the Johnson family. Mary Elizabeth Johnson graduated from USD with a degree in mass communications and served at the Mayo Clinic for over three decades, working closely with women experiencing health issues and loss. The Johnson Family Outstanding Instructor Award is given each year to a single faculty member holding the rank of instructor who has demonstrated outstanding classroom teaching and mentoring throughout the previous calendar year.
Marco is a lecturer in the Department of English and teaches undergraduate English at the USD – Sioux Falls campus. She has published fiction, non-fiction and poetry in a wide range of journals, and received the Frederick Manfred Award for Creative Writing, presented by the Western Literature Association, in 2017. Some of Marco’s research and teaching interests include creative writing, rural studies and literature, Great Plains literature, and composition. She also serves as the faculty advisor for the Vermillion Literary Project and as the South Dakota region writing coordinator for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.
Monsignor James M. Doyle Humanities Teaching Award
Lisa Ann Robertson, Ph.D., received the Monsignor James M. Doyle Humanities Teaching Award, which is made possible thanks to a gift from Monsignor James Michael Doyle, former chair of religious studies at USD and a prominent theologian inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame. Monsignor Doyle endowed a prize to reward an outstanding teacher and mentor in the humanities division of the College of Arts & Sciences.
As coordinator of graduate studies and associate professor in the Department of English, Robertson teaches courses in 18th- and 19th-century British literature, women writers, the rise of the novel, and graduate-level bibliography and research. She received the Belbas-Larson Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2020, and she has published several articles on such topics as science, cognition, aesthetics, ethics in British Romanticism and Romantic materialist theories of mind.
