Four faculty members to teach honors courses as Dunlevie professors

May 1, 2014

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Four distinguished University of Florida faculty members have been appointed as Elizabeth Wood Dunlevie Honors Term Professors for the 2014-15 academic year during which they will teach special classes for the honors program.

They are: Joan Frosch of the School of Theatre and Dance, Katheryn Russell-Brown of the Frederic G. Levin College of Law, Gregory Schultz of the College of Medicine, and Vassiliki “Betty” Smocovitis of the departments of biology and history.

The Elizabeth Wood Dunlevie Honors Term Professorships are made possible by a generous endowment gift from Elizabeth Wood Dunlevie, a UF graduate.  The goal of the program is to encourage the most esteemed UF faculty to participate in the University Honors Program as instructors and mentors.  The endowment provides summer salary and support for the faculty members’ activities. 

Frosch will offer a course titled Choreographing Africa: Inheritance, Imagination, and Innovation.  Students will broaden their awareness of global culture and performance and will have the opportunity to interact with leaders in African dance via campus residencies and Skype sessions.  Most importantly, they will have the chance to feel welcome in a dance studio to experience the movements, rhythms, traditions and innovations of African dance.

Russell-Brown’s course is titled Race, Criminal Law, and Justice.  This class will examine the interplay of race, crime, and the law in the U.S. via two interrelated themes — the role of history as context for understanding contemporary laws that govern the criminal justice system, and how existing laws might be restructured and re-imagined to achieve racial justice.  Discussions will focus on various racial dynamics and combine legal, historical, political and sociological points of view.

Schultz will invite students into his laboratory at the College of Medicine for a course titled Molecular Regulation of Wound Healing – from Bench to Bedside Translation.  Students will learn first-hand about biomaterials, stem cell therapies, viral vectored gene therapy, clinical trial design, ethics of animal and clinical research and cost effectiveness.

Smocovitis will teach Who Am I? History, Identity, and Health in the Age of Genomics.  This course will familiarize students with molecular biology and its methods so that they can understand the human genomic sequencing and biomarker services that are now commercially available.  She will challenge students by confronting the mismatch between the empowerment provided by this knowledge and the associated moral ambiguities that arise from the knowledge.

Frosch has a 20-year record of outstanding accomplishments as a faculty member and is currently a UF Foundation Research Professor.  In 2007 she was honored as UF International Educator of the Year.  Frosch also serves as director of the Center for World Arts within the College of Fine Arts, as well as an affiliate faculty member with the Center for African Studies, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the Digital Worlds Institute. 

Russell-Brown is the Chesterfield Smith Professor of Law and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations.  She arrived at UF in 2003.  She is the author of five books, including the influential work “The Color of Crime,” and has the distinction of having one of her articles cited in an opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States. 

Schultz is a recognized leader in basic and translational research in the area of molecular regulation of wound healing.  He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed research papers, with multiple publications in Science, Nature and New England Journal of Medicine.  He has received more than $13 million of research funding and holds 22 patents.  He is a highly sought after lecturer and was awarded the College of Medicine’s International Educator of the Year Award in 2008.

Smocovitis is a UF Distinguished Alumni Professor with a joint appointment in the departments of history and biology.  She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has served as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar.  In recognition of her teaching, Smocovitis was awarded the Joseph H. Hazen Education Prize from the History of Science Society, received the CLAS Teaching Award (three times), and also was recognized as the University Teacher of the Year.

Dunlevie Professors are selected by Kevin Knudson, director of the Honors Program, in consultation with a committee of UF faculty, from a pool of nominees submitted by department chairs.