CHASS Names Distinguished Professors for Ongoing Research Excellence

In what he hopes will be a new tradition in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dean Joseph Ward has announced that six members of the college faculty will be granted the honorary title of Distinguished Professor.

The award is “a way of recognizing that these are colleagues who have continued to perform at a very high level in all areas of a faculty member’s responsibilities – teaching, research and service ,” he said.

The Distinguished Professor title is an award, not a promotion, for senior faculty members who continue to work fulltime, he said.

Ward said he was reluctant to limit the number of awardees “because we have many more than six who are highly professional and accomplished.”

“This is the beginning,” he added, “of what we hope will grow into a longer-term program to recognize faculty,” he added.

Distinguished Professors awardees: 

Colin Flint, an expert in how geography impacts politics, is professor of political science. He’s been at USU since 2013, relocating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he was a professor of geography. Flint, author of the popular textbook Introduction to Geopolitics (Routledge, 2012), is also the director of the International Studies major.

Joyce Kinkead, professor of English, joined the USU faculty in 1982. She was named Professor the Year by the Carnegie Foundation in 2013 and, between 2000 and 2011 , served as USU’s associate vice president for research.

Richard Krannich, professor of sociology, joined the USU faculty in 1980. He served as the head of the Department of Sociology, Social work and Anthropology from 2002 to 2011, and he has directed the Center for Society, Economy and the Environment at USU since 2012. 

Patricia Lambert, professor of anthropology, joined the USU faculty in 1996. She directed the Anthropology Program from 2004 to 2009, and in 2010 served a six-year assignment as the associate dean of Research and Graduate Studies for CHaSS.

Tammy Proctor, head of USU’s Department of History, earned the rank of professor at Wittenberg University in 2008, where she became the H. O. Hirt Endowed Professor in 2010.  She joined the USU faculty as in 2013, also serving as the interim department head of the Department of Journalism and Communication in 2015-2016.  

Frances Titchener, professor of history and classics, joined the USU faculty in 1987 and in the years since has taught Latin, ancient Greek and many courses in classical history. She has co-edited Ploutarchos, the journal of the International Plutarch Society, since 1987.  Since 2014, she’s directed the USU Undergraduate Teaching Fellows program.

For more information and to read faculty bios, visit chass.usu.edu.

Writer and contact: Janelle Hyatt, 435-797-0289, Janelle.hyatt@usu.edu