Faculty & Staff Achievements
The following is a representative collection of UHV faculty and staff accomplishments:
Kathleen Reeve was awarded a silver medal from the Good Samaritan Foundation in the nursing
faculty category.
The eighth edition of “Art & Creative Development for Young Children” by Jill Fox was upgraded
by Cengage Learning to a AAA rating, meaning it is one of the publisher’s best-sellers.
Diana López’s 2012 book “Choke” about the dangers of the choking game in middle schools was
adapted into the Lifetime movie “The Choking Game.” Her book “Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel” also
was featured on the Lone Star Reading List and the New York Public Library 100 Titles for
Reading and Sharing.
The UHV Small Business Development Center was awarded the Victoria Chamber of Commerce Small
Business Partner of the Month at the May chamber luncheon. The SBDC is led by Director Joe
Humphreys.
Shainy Varghese received a Nurses.com Texas Giving Excellence Meaning (GEM) award.
Ricardo Teixeira and Joann Olson were each awarded $10,000 summer junior faculty research
grants by UHV.
Andria Young and Bev Hoerig developed a Massive Open Online Course, a free online class offered to
the public. Close to 11,500 people enrolled in “Applying Principles of Behavior in the K-12 Classroom”
in two different sessions.
Sandra Wood, who retired in February 2014 after more than 20 years working at UHV, was
recognized as the 2013 Employee of the Year.
Phil Castille spoke as part of a panel titled “Meanwhile, Back at the Nonflagships” at the Texas
Tribune Festival in Austin.
Nazif Durmaz, Rajan Selvarajan and Jifu Wang were named School of Business Administration
Partnership Professors.
Amberley Gutierrez won two platinum awards in the MarCom Awards 2013 competition for a poster
design and a variety of collateral materials. Melody Vecera received an honorable mention
for a poster design.
Fred Litton was appointed by the Texas Education Agency to be on a committee that advises the
State Board of Educator Certification.
Marketing & Communications Department staff members, including Paula Cobler, Melody Vecera,
George Rodriguez, Jeremy Shapiro, Amberley Gutierrez, Katy Walterscheidt, Lonnie
Holcombe and Della Rampley, worked on projects that earned UHV 13 local ADDY Awards. The awards
recognize advertising creative excellence and are given out by the American Advertising Federation.
Teresa LeSage Clements, Joann Olson, Hsin-Hui Lin, Ana Laura Pineda and Dyana Cochrum were recognized
for their superior work in the School of Education & Human Development.
Jie Yang, Peggy Cloninger and Massoud Metghalchi received the 2012-2013 Bloomberg Businessweek
Teaching and Research Awards.
Siva Somasundaram earned the Enron Teaching Excellence Award at the university.
Jennifer Boswell received the UHV Research and Scholarly Activity Excellence Award.
Denise Neill was awarded the UHV Distinguished Faculty Service Award. She also was named among 20
outstanding nurses in the Houston region by the Texas Nurses Association District 9.
Beverly Tomek, Ricardo Teixeira, Richard Gunasekera and Mary Lasater were named recipients of UHV’s
Internal Research Grant Awards to further their research.
The state of Texas received a second two-year $300,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
in Phase II of the Academic Progression in Nursing initiative to increase the number of nurses with
bachelor’s degrees. Kathryn Tart is the project director of the APIN for Texas.
Barba Patton was awarded the National Social Science Association 2013-2014 Member of the Year award.
The UHV comparative literature journal symplokē signed an affiliation agreement with the American
Comparative Literature Association and will receive $5,000 annually. Jeffrey Di Leo is the editor
of symplokē.
Terry Kirk was elected to the Texas Nurses Association District 9 Board of Directors.
Mark Ward Sr.’s book, “Deadly Documents: Technical Communication, Organizational Discourse and the
Holocaust – Lessons from the Rhetorical Work of Everyday Texts,” was published by Baywood Publishers
of Amityville, N.Y.
Sandy McNeely was named co-chair of the Nurse Family Partnership Community Advisory Board in Fort
Bend, Galveston and Harris counties.