Congratulations, Dr. Amy Shuman!

March 6, 2015

Congratulations, Dr. Amy Shuman!

Amy Shuman Award

Please join us in congratulating Amy Shuman, who is a recipient of this year’s Distinguished Scholar Award. The Distinguished Scholar Award, established in 1978, recognizes exceptional scholarly accomplishments by senior professors who have compiled a substantial body of research. The award is supported by the Office of Research. Recipients are nominated by their departments and chosen by a committee of senior faculty, including several past recipients of the award. Distinguished Scholars receive a $3,000 honorarium and a research grant of $20,000 to be used over the next three years.

Amy was presented with this award earlier today in a surprise visit to her classroom by Jan Weisenberger, Senior Associate Vice President for Research. Chad Allen, Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities, congratulated Amy on behalf of the College. A large group of colleagues and fans, including the students in Amy’s graduate class, were also present for the announcement and joined in the celebration. 

The nomination for the Distinguished Scholar Award requires support from scholars outside of OSU as well as a detailed nomination letter from the department. Here is a key paragraph from that latter letter:

In her thirty-four years at Ohio State, Amy Shuman has made considerable and lasting scholarly, curricular, and leadership contributions to the interconnected fields in which she works: folklore, literacy studies, narrative studies, disability studies, and human rights studies. She is author or co-author of three books and over 50 articles, and has co-edited two special issues of major journals in folklore. She has also delivered over 100 papers and 40 keynote or invited lectures at conferences, workshops, and universities around the world. Her wide-ranging accomplishments and undeniable interdisciplinary commitments point to her success in reshaping scholarly conversations and understandings about social stigma, marginalization, and social justice. In addition, she has been a program-builder in the development of folklore studies, disability studies, narrative studies, and human rights studies at OSU, helping to bring us national and even international distinction in these fields.

You can also gain a sense of Amy’s expansive scholarly reach and influence by reviewing the list of students she has worked with at OSU. She has directed 18 dissertations (with five more in progress) and 17 M.A. theses, and served on 65 dissertation committees, in a wide range of fields including English, Art Education, Education, Sociology, East Asian Languages and Literatures, Communication, Spanish and Portuguese, Anthropology, Theatre, Comparative Studies, Foreign Language Education, Workforce Development, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She has also served on MFA thesis committees in Glass and Sculpture, Animation, and Photography. English may be her home department, but Amy’s scholarly contributions and influence have been truly interdisciplinary.

 

Amy Shuman Award

Congratulations, Amy, on this well-deserved recognition of your distinguished scholarly career!