18 Presidential Incentive Awards funded for 2023-24

University of North Georgia (UNG) President Bonita Jacobs awarded more than $182,000 to fund 18 Presidential Incentive Awards designed to provide institutional support for faculty to pursue scholarly work and promote innovative teaching practices in the 2023-24 academic year.

"I am very pleased that we have been able to invest in our faculty and staff through this program over the past 10 years. It has supported their strong commitment to research and the development of innovative practices that enrich our students' academic experience and their success in college," Jacobs said. "And, in many cases, the program has accelerated initiatives that generate additional external resources for the university."

Jacobs initiated the program in 2013; since then more than $2.6 million has been invested in research and scholarly work.

A total of 46 applications were submitted across the three award categories (Semester, Summer and Innovation). Semester Awards include a full semester release from teaching and provide funding support of up to $12,000 each, while Summer Awards offer up to $10,000 of support. Innovation Awards allocate up to $5,000 each to support interdisciplinary and/or cross-functional collaborations or individual pursuits focused on innovations and partnerships to promote implementation of best practices.

"The proposals selected for funding include a wide range of research and creative activities that will improve teaching and learning, foster collaboration across departments, and provide opportunities for community engagement, all of which are components of UNG's mission," Dr. Holly Verhasselt, associate provost for institutional effectiveness and chief research officer, said.

The recipients include:

Presidential Incentive Semester Awards:

• Valerie Surrett (English), "Locked Up: An American Landscape"
• Erin Bush (History, Anthropology & Philosophy), "Under the Guise of Protection: Wayward Girls, Eugenics, and the Growth of Social Authority in Twentieth-Century Virginia" 
• Austin Riede (English), "Conscientious Objection and Withheld War Labor in British Literature, 1914-1939"  
• Jacob Bateman McDonald (IESA), "Where do streams begin? Predictive modeling of channel heads in the Chattahoochee River watershed"
• Ryan Thompson (Mathematics), "Analysis of Convection-Diffusion Models"

Presidential Incentive Summer Awards:

• Erin Barding (Biology), Dr. Andrew Taylor (Biology), "A Storm of Activity at the Hurricane Creek Research Site: Long-Term Monitoring of the Wildlife Communities Amidst Ongoing Restoration Efforts"
• Nancy Dalman (Biology), Dr. Dobrusia Bialonska (Biology) and Dr. Chris Leaphart (Biology), "A Holistic Survey of Biotic and Abiotic Factors Affecting Oysters on the Georgia Coast"
• Robyn Hicks (School of Communication, Film & Theatre), "SYBIL," an intimate documentary feature, which interweaves the narrative of Sybil Rosen’s past, told by the 70-year-old writer herself as she contemplates her decades-long career and confronts an uncertain future.
• David Patterson (Biology), Dr. Christopher Seminack (IESA), "Late Pleistocene ecosystem evolution in southeastern North America: a transdisciplinary approach using fossil American alligator enamel isotopes"
• Esther Morgan-Ellis (Music), "Musical Leadership in Sacred Harp Singing: A Faculty-Student Collaborative Investigation"
• Cathy Whiting (Biology) and Dr. Abby Meyer (Psychological Science), "Immunohistochemical Localization of Inflammatory Chemicals and Histological Characterization of Murine Brain, Liver, and Kidney Tissue Following Exposure to E-Cigarettes"
• Jie Guo (Management & Marketing), "Individual Drive and Gender Effect in Career Upward Mobility"
• Anilkumar Devarapu (Mathematics), Dr. Ramjee Sharma (Mathematics) and Dr. Dipendra Regmi (Mathematics), "Mathematical Modeling, Analysis and Simulations of Mixed Convection Nanofluid Flow Problems"

Presidential Incentive Awards for Innovation:

• Miriam Moore (English), Dr. Micah Corum (English) and Dr. Macklin Cowart (English), "The UNG Linguistics Symposium 2024"
• Evan Lampert (Biology), "Are Swallowtail Caterpillars a Jack of All Trades?"  
• Katherine Adams (Social Foundations and Leadership Education), Dr. Ryan Hipp (Kinesiology) and Dr. Timothy Hayes (Criminal Justice), "University of North Georgia Graduate Student Research Symposium"
• Ana Pozzi-Harris (Visual Arts) and Dr. Elissa Ferguson (Visual Arts): "The Historic Church Project: Community Engagement through Undergraduate Research and Information Design"
• Joshua Driver (Chemistry), Dr. Isaac Agyekum (Chemistry) and Dr. Andrew Thomas (Chemistry): "Introduction of Digital Laboratory Notebooks into the Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory"