2005 Faculty Fellows
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Abbott, Ann
Assistant Professor, Spanish, Italian & Portuguese
BiographyAnn Abbott directs the Spanish & Illinois Program in the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. With a background in community-based learning, she designs courses that place students of Spanish with local organizations that assist Spanish-speakers. Her research interests center on students' ability to perform real-world tasks in a second language, international community-based learning, and technology in community-based learning.
AbstractIn Spanish 202, Spanish and Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures and Communities students learn the principles of social entrepreneurship and apply them to their community-based learning work in the Champaign-Urbana Latino community. Students note challenges in the organizations where they work or in the local Latino communities. They then define the opportunity that exists within that challenge, identify the resources they need, and finally create a plan of action that will create social value. Finally, the course encourages an entrepreneurial view of career choice by urging students to imagine unique career paths that combine their professional interests, knowledge and experience of Spanish and Hispanic cultures, and their experiences working in the community.
Anderson, Steven
Associate Professor, Social Work
BiographySocial work professor Steve Anderson is co-author of a study of the first 137,000 people to leave welfare in Illinois. He has published extensively on health care coverage for working mothers, and on results of State TANF Policy.
AbstractStrategies of Leadership and Social Change will begin the training of two important groups of future social workers--those who will advocate for social change through advocacy organizations, and those who will become leaders in nonprofit organizations. The most fruitful nature of change opportunities and strategies will be explored. Content on techniques useful in both settings will be developed.
The course content will be enriched by entrepreneurial perspectives regarding strategies for creating and implementing innovation. Among the topics to be explored are: how to identify and assess change opportunities, how to utilize the expertise of entrepreneurs in the community for various agency purposes, how to disseminate successful program ideas to other program sites, and how to use leadership skills to stimulate innovations.
Case studies on successful social program innovations will also be developed as a means both to encourage students about possibilities and to explore factors critical to successful social change.
Gow, Hamish
Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Consumer Economics
BiographyHamish Gow is an Assistant Professor of Agriculture and Consumer Economics and Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a graduate of Lincoln University and earned an M.S. in Agricultural Finance and Ph.D. in Marketing and Food Distribution from Cornell University. Since 1999, Professor Gow has been on the faculty of the University of Illinois as well as a Senior Research Associate at LICOS Institute of Transition Economies at KU Leuven.
Professor Gow has extensive international experience. His research on agricultural marketing and finance has appeared in journals and has been presented to professional meetings around the world. His research has been supported by numerous grants from sources that include the USDA Higher Education Challenge Grant, the European Union, Illinois Soybean Program Operating Board, and Illinois Missouri Biotechnology Alliance. Professor Gow has served as a reviewer for several professional journals as well as assistant editor, associate editor, and editor of the International Food and Agribusiness Management Review.
AbstractInternational Business Immersion Program (IBIP) will provide selected graduate students an unparalleled opportunity to enhance their international entrepreneurial capacity, skills and leadership abilities by participating in an innovative student-led industry-focused faculty-facilitated experiential learning program. The students will have an opportunity to acquire the leadership skills, global business exposure, and vision required to become the "new" generation of "can do" global entrepreneurial leaders who can "hit the real-world running" and lead the Illinois and US agricultural, food and fiber sectors into the future.
IBIP will assist and facilitate participants in developing an understanding of the international marketplace from a customer and consumer perspective and in learning how to identify, analyze, and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities within the international marketplace. The program will be built from the customer backwards in the same way that world-class integrated production and marketing channels are built. This will allow participants to track the processes required for sustainable competitive success in a global market.
Lear, Darcy
Assistant Professor, Spanish, Italian & Portuguese
BiographyDarcy Lear is an assistant professor in the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese and is the Director of the Basic Language Program in Spanish. She received a PhD in Foreign and Second Language Education from The Ohio State University in 2003 and has been teaching at the University of Illinois since the fall 2004 semester. Her areas of interest include technology in education and Spanish in the professions.
AbstractSpanish 202 , Spanish and Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures and Communities, encourages an entrepreneurial view of career choice by urging students to imagine unique career paths by combining their professional interests, knowledge and experience of Spanish and Hispanic cultures, to provide needed services to the local community.
A formalized relationship between students and an organization such as the East Central Illinois Refugee Mutual Assistance Center and/or El Centro por los Trabajadores will be established, and assessment materials that measure student achievement and changes in career goals and attitudes will be created.
Resource acquisition and product or service creation are fundamental to both the classroom and service element of this course. Inside the classroom, language development and improved cultural competency (specifically related to immigration) are acquired resources that provide insight into unmet needs. In their final projects students will explore opportunities identified in their service work in order to benefit the non-profit entity. Possible final projects include: researching and/or acquiring funding, designing, producing and marketing products, identifying and providing a service, document preparation that streamlines services, and designing fundraising materials.
Schook, Lawrence
Professor, Animal Sciences and Institute for Genomic Biology
BiographyLawrence Schook is a Faculty Excellence Professor of Genomics, a Faculty Fellow at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications, and Director of the Agricultural Genome Sciences and Public Policy Training Program. This latter program is unique for it serves to address public policy issues associated with the use of genomics in animal, plant and microbial research.
Dr. Schook has received numerous awards including fellowships from the NIH and the Pardee Foundation, University Scholar at the University of Illinois, the Funk Award for Meritorious Achievements in Agriculture, and the Prifzer Animal Health Research Award. He has also served as an advisor to corporations, universities, non-governmental and government agencies with respect to genomics and animal biotechnology. Dr. Schook has served in several key leadership roles at the USDA and NRC in animal genomics and is the founding editor of Animal Biotechnology .
AbstractCreating Value in the Life Sciences: Defining Roles and Roadmaps for Success will focus attention to the role of the University (faculty, staff, and administration) in fostering entrepreneurial leadership with respect to the Life Sciences. Clearly the existing models of business development that had been developed for high tech (computers, telecommunications, imaging) do not address the need to bundle life science innovations, the need for longer and more costly development times, the need for trained life science technicians, the need for wet laboratory space, and the need to address regulatory hurdles. This course will address these components as well as how the broader university community can contribute towards building the required entrepreneurial environment. This course will also provide students with materials for use across the country. Course exercises will include developing materials that can be used by campus administration and community developers; interviewing noted experts to learn the thought process of linking innovation to economic development, and assisting in the development of course materials to be held on and off campus to promote entrepreneurialism in the Life Sciences and to address emerging commercialization opportunities associated with the Institute for Genomic Biology.
Squier, Joseph
Professor, Art & Design
BiographyJoseph Squier teaches studio art in the Narrative Media Program, School of Art & Design. His electronic artwork has been featured in the New York Times and numerous recent books on emerging electronic media. Squier is a Content Editor for ninthletter.com and works as an Art Editor for the Ninth Letter magazine. He has received Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation. At UIUC, Squier has been named a University Scholar and a Distinguished Teacher/Scholar, two of the University's highest honors.
AbstractArt, Design, and Innovation: The Artist/Designer as Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Outlaw will be taught within the School of Art & Design to a population of graduate and advanced undergraduate students. Traditional professional practices such as resume and grant writing will be combined with case-studies of contemporary artists whose work challenges prevailing notions of typical practice. We will also study art projects that are entrepreneurial in reinventing art practice, thus expanding the vision of what opportunities exist for practicing art professionals. Students will research and develop non-traditional projects; write plans, proposals, resumes, and grants; present and promote their ideas.