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KU PEOPLE

Canda honored for international work

Ed Canda, professor of social welfare, received the 2008 George and Eleanor Woodyard International Educator Award at faculty/staff convocation Sept. 4.

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Richard Lariviere presented the award to Canda, who has been on the KU faculty since 1989.

The award recognizes faculty on the Lawrence campus who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in strengthening KU's international dimension in such areas as curriculum development, study abroad programs, relationships with international partner institutions and collaboration with international colleagues in significant research and publications.

Loomis to take State Department tour

Burdett Loomis

For the second time this year, the U.S. State Department has invited Burdett Loomis, professor of political science, to speak abroad on the U.S. political system.

Loomis, author or editor of more than 25 books on U.S. politics, left Sept. 13 for a two-week speaking tour in five cities in China. In February, he embarked on a similar State Department assignment in Malaysia and Singapore.

He will meet with students, scholars and journalists in Beijing, Changchun, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Nanjing. It will be Loomis' first visit to China.

Freund Schwartz feted for research

Roberta Freund Schwartz, associate professor of musicology, was recognized by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections with the 2008 Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research.

She received the award for best history in the category of Best Research in Recorded Blues, Rhythm and Blues or Soul Music for her publication, "How Britain Got the Blues: The Transmission and Reception of American Blues Style in the United Kingdom." She also wrote an essay in "Cross the Water Blues: African American Music in Europe," edited by Neil A. Wynn, which received a Certificate of Merit in the same category.

Winners are chosen by the association's awards committee.

Business class noted for unique methods

Accounting 731, a class developed by Raquel Alexander, assistant professor of business, and Andi Witczak, director of the Center for Service Learning, earned the 2008 Deloitte Foundation and American Taxation Association Teaching Award at a conference in Anaheim, Ca. The $5,000 annual award from Deloitte and ATA encourages tax professors to develop new teaching methods that stimulate students' critical thinking skills and enhance the learning experience.

Alexander and Witczak's teaching method formally incorporates service learning class projects as part of a tax curriculum, motivating students by applying classroom lessons to the outside world.

TOPONYMS:

Kenneth A. Spencer graduated from KU in 1926 with an engineering degree. During World War II he processed ammonium nitrate for ammunition and later converted the plant into the world's largest fertilizer producer. After his death in 1960, his widow, Helen Foresman Spencer, who attended KU, used their foundation's funds to endow a research library in his name (1968) and an art museum in her name (1977). For more, visit www.buildings.ku.edu.