Philosophy professor Peter Fosl received the Acorn Award as Kentucky's outstanding professor for 2006 from the Kentucky Advocates of Higher Education and the Council on Postsecondary Education. In addition to serving as philosophy program director, Fosl developed Sophia, Transylvania's philosophy club; the philosophy program's Web site; a philosophy film series; and a philosophy lecture series. He has launched courses in environmental philosophy, feminist philosophies, and medieval philosophy. His two-year Bingham-Young Professorship on Liberty, Security, and Justice, completed in 2006, brought prominent guest speakers to campus and featured panel discussions, a film series, symposia, and other events that focused the Transy community on heightened issues of liberty, security, and justice in the era following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S.

Biology professor Peggy Palombi was named the 2005 Kentucky Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. She was cited for finding innovative ways to make biological science relevant to non-majors while also devising challenges that give Transy students an edge when they pursue careers in medicine, research, and teaching. Her approach to teaching combines the hard science requirements of her discipline with a liberal arts focus on developing the whole student. Palombi also is a recipient of the Bingham Award for Excellence in Teaching and a Monroe Moosnick Professorship in the Natural Sciences.

This was the fourth time in five years that a Transy faculty member has claimed the Professor of the Year honor. With a total of five wins, more Transy professors have received this award than have faculty members from any other college in the state.

Political science professor Don Dugi was named 2003 Kentucky Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). The award honors the most outstanding undergraduate professors in the nation—those who excel as classroom teachers and influence the lives and careers of their students. It is one of the most prestigious awards given to university faculty. Dugi’s award marked the third consecutive year—and the fourth time in eight years—that a member of Transylvania’s faculty was chosen as Professor of the Year.

Dugi’s dedication to students goes well beyond the classroom. He has served as Student Government Association adviser, sponsor for both the College Democrats and College Republicans, and supervisor for Transylvania’s legislative internship program. As Transy’s pre-law adviser, Dugi offers a month-long workshop to help students prepare for the law school admissions test and application process. The workshops, which he conducts at no personal benefit, have helped Transy students gain admission to top law schools including Harvard, Stanford, Duke, and Columbia. Nearly every Transy student who applies to law school is accepted.

Philosophy professor Jack Furlong was the 2002 recipient of the Carnegie/CASE Kentucky Professor of the Year award. Furlong also was honored by the Kentucky Advocates for Higher Education with the 2000 Acorn Award as the top teacher in Kentucky’s colleges and universities.

Furlong is known for his interdisciplinary approach to teaching. His students have come to expect the application of philosophy to areas such as ethical issues in economics or the ideology of evolutionary psychology. He often team teaches with professors from other disciplines and is known on campus as a “teacher of teachers” for his leadership in faculty development and curriculum enhancement.  

Biology professor James Wagner was the 2001 Carnegie/CASE Kentucky Professor of the Year.

Wagner’s infectious openness of mind and spirit refresh the environment for teaching and learning not only in the biology program but also throughout the sciences and across campus. He embraces the liberal arts ideal of integrating many disciplines and thinking about the bigger picture. Wagner’s research in wolf spider cannibalism has been profiled on The Discover Channel’s Discover Magazine program, and he brought the National American Arachnological Society’s annual meeting to Transylvania.

Political science professor Sakah Mahmud received a Rockefeller Fellowship for the 2003-04 academic year to conduct research as part of the Program in Religion, Conflict, and Peacekeeping sponsored by the John B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Mahmud was one of three scholars from across the country selected to receive the fellowship.

Muhmud conducted a comparative study of two Sub-Saharan African countries, Senegal and Nigeria, to determine how and why Islamic activism has produced civic peace in Senegal as opposed to Nigeria, where activism has often led to confrontations and violence. A native of Nigeria, Mahmud specializes in comparative political economy, human rights and democratic theory, international relations, and comparative politics of Africa, Asia, and the Third World. At Transy, his courses focus on the history of Africa, globalization and civic responsibility, and politics of Sub-Saharan Africa, Japan, and the Middle East. He is developing a course on religion and politics, with a special focus on Islam.

Physics professor Jamie Day received the Smithsonian Institution’s Dibner Resident Scholar Fellowship in 2003 to research historically scientific apparatus at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Day is curator of Transylvania’s Monroe Moosnick Medical and Science Museum, which displays a portion of the University’s collection of nineteenth century science artifacts, anatomical models, and botanical paintings that were used to teach the principles of physics, chemistry, and biology. Steve Turner, senior specialist for the physical sciences collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, said that Transy’s collection far exceeds what is in the Smithsonian’s holdings for the time period.

History Professor Melissa McEuen received the 2000 Emily Toth Award from the American Culture Association and the Popular Culture Association. The award recognizes the best book of the year in women’s studies and popular culture.

McEuen’s book is Seeing America: Women Photographers Between the Wars. She serves as chair of Transylvania’s history program, and her areas of research and specialization include American culture, women’s history, and visual representation.