2012

Dr. Linda Apple Monson
School of Music

Linda Apple Monson, International Steinway Artist and professor in Mason's School of Music, serves as associate director for academic affairs for the School of Music and director of keyboard studies. She is also director of music at Springfield United Methodist Church. Monson previously served on the music faculties of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, the Baltimore School for the Arts, and Northern Virginia Community College. A native of central Pennsylvania, Monson earned a doctor of musical arts in piano performance, a master of music in piano, and a bachelor of music education with a double major in piano and bassoon from the Peabody Conservatory of Music of Johns Hopkins University. She also received a diploma in piano from Musica en Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and studied at the Music Academy of the West. Recognized internationally as a master teacher, she has given lecture-recitals, solo piano recitals, and piano master classes throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Central America. She is a frequent lecture-recitalist at international, national, and regional conferences of the College Music Society and is president of the society's Mid-Atlantic Region. Serving on Mason's Faculty Arts Board and Friends of Music Board, Monson is a frequent presenter for Mason's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and a preperformance lecturer for the Great Performances at Mason series. She performs frequently at Mason, including recent solo piano world premieres by Mason faculty composers Mark Camphouse, Glenn Smith, and Jesse Guessford. She was piano concerto soloist with the George Mason University Symphony Orchestra, directed by Anthony Maiello, and she performed with Richard Stoltzman and the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra, directed by Jim Carroll, in performances at Mason's Center for the Arts. She is an active adjudicator in numerous piano competitions and festivals. Monson received the George Mason University 2009 Teaching Excellence Award.

Don Boileau
Department of Communication

Dr. Don M. Boileau joined the niversity full time in 1987. Boileau received a PhD, as well as a master’s in rhetoric and public address, from the University of Oregon. He received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Stanford University. Boileau was a Peace Corps volunteer in Korea from 1968 to 1969. His research focuses on instructional communication, and he has written more than 35 articles on teaching communication that vary from defining the field to how to teach public speaking. At Mason, Boileau helped develop the nation’s first doctorate in community college teaching, and he was the first coordinator of the Linked Courses Program. Boileau was chair of Mason’s Faculty Senate for three years. Boileau, who won three teaching awards from Lambda Pi Eta, the student honor society in communication, between 2001
and 2008, also taught at Central Michigan University, the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, Lane Community College, and Central Washington University. Boileau was president of the Eastern Communication Association and also worked for the National Communication Association as director of education for more than six years.

Todd Kashdan
Department of Psychology

The pursuit of happiness—it’s one of the tenets on which this country was founded. So it’s somewhat surprising that the scientific study of happiness is a somewhat new field.

Todd Kashdan associate professor of psychology and this year’s Celebration of Distinction’s Faculty Member of the Year, is at the forefront of this relatively young discipline known as “positive psychology.”

Edward Diener, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and one of the first to seriously study the science of happiness, says Kashdan is “the entire package as a scholar” and “one of the outstanding young research psychologists in the country.”

Despite earning his PhD in 2004, Kashdan has already published 77 articles, written 10 book chapters, and given more than 100 presentations.

“Dr. Kashdan is the rare scientist who breathes life into research,” says William Breen, one of Kashdan’s doctoral students. “He has a knack for conveying complex ideas in ways that promote understanding and generate enthusiasm.” Therein lies Kashdan’s success with the popular media. His work has been featured prominently in the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as on NPR and PBS. He also writes a blog for Psychology Today.

Last year, his book, Curious? Discovering the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life, was published. He also cowrote Designing the Future of Positive Psychology: Taking Stock and Moving Forward that same year.

Along with publishing, a large part of Kashdan’s success lies in his teaching.

“Dr. Kashdan is passionate about seeing his students succeed,” says Alex Afram, another psychology doctoral student. “In everything he pursues, be it teaching, conducting research, or mentoring students, he gives himself completely.”

Peter Boettke, MA '97 & PhD '89
Department of Economics

If there were an MVP award in academia, Mason economist and alumnus Peter J. Boettke would surely win the honor if his colleagues and students had a say. Instead, they honored him by nominating him for Faculty Member of the Year.

An avid basketball fan and long-time youth basketball coach, Boettke is known for his mentoring and willingness to get to know his students. “Professor Boettke has a rare gift in terms of getting students excited—and getting students to want to devote their lives to the study of economics,” says one such former student, Edward Peter Stringham, MA Economics ’02, who now teaches economics at Trinity College in Connecticut.

“Many of our finest graduate students were here through [Boettke’s] efforts,” says Richard Wagner, Harris Professor of Economics at Mason. “He takes pride in the achievements of his former students” and continues to mentor them even after graduation.

“I was very fortunate when I was a student [at Mason],” says Boettke, who earned an MA and a PhD in economics from Mason. “I worked with Don Lavoie, a professor here for many years who unfortunately passed away at a young age. Basically, he was a role model of what I wanted to do when I became a professor.”

The fact that his former students nominated him for the award made the recognition especially meaningful for Boettke. “I was absolutely elated,” he says. “Mason economics is a special place and working with the great PhD students who come from all over the world to study here is a source of great professional satisfaction and personal joy.”

In the course of a year, Boettke normally mentors approximately two PhD students, but this year he chaired the dissertation committees of four PhD students who completed their degrees. At present, Boettke is chairing five dissertation committees that are in various stages. But it is more than just a day’s work (plus some) for this educator.

“Working with these PhD students is perhaps the most important work I do,” he says. “It is real joy to see them succeed in their studies and then embark on their own academic careers. My students are primarily focused on becoming academics, and we have been fortunate to see them achieve that goal and develop their own careers in publishing and teaching in academia. Many of these students have started their own research centers at their new university modeled on the program at Mason.”

Boettke, who is the BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism as well as a University Professor, the highest academic rank at Mason, also serves as vice president for research at the Mercatus Center and is deputy director of the James M. Buchanan Center for Politic Economy.

He has written a number of books, including Why Perestroika Failed: The Politics and Economics of Social Transformation and Calculation and Coordination: Essays on Socialism and Transitional Political Economy. In 1998, he assumed the editorship of the journal Review of Austrian Economics and has served as director of the Advance Summer Seminar in Austrian Economics since the mid-1990s.

More recently, he became faculty director of the Global Prosperity Initiative, a part of the Mercatus Center’s Social Change Project, where the research combines an ethnographic style of field work with the analytical structure of economic reasoning to explore why some nations are rich and others are poor.

“My entire career at Mason has been very charmed,” says Boettke. “I have to pinch myself that I am here. This is home for me.”

Harold Geller, MAIS '92, Certificate Community College Education '02 and DA Community College Education '05
Associate Professor in Physics & Astronomy and Director of the Observatory

After almost 16 years of teaching in Mason’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, Harold Geller finally received a scouting merit badge in astronomy. It was given to him by a group of boy scouts who came to the new campus observatory to view the night skies. They are just one of many community groups with whom Geller has shared his knowledge through observing sessions and astronomy lectures. His office is decorated with hand-drawn thank-you notes from local schoolchildren.

Geller joined Mason as an adjunct faculty member in 1992 after completing his master’s degree. He became a full-time faculty member in 2000 and is currently the associate chair of the department.

Geller is a codesigner of the first astrobiology course taught at Mason, and recently his text for faculty interested in teaching the course, Astrobiology: The Integrated Science Curriculum, was published. He also developed Astronomy for Teachers, a graduate course for educators.

In addition, Geller is the keeper of Mason’s observatory archives and history. He designed, developed, and raised funds for the construction of the university’s new observatory (its third, he will remind you), which will house a 32-inch Ritchey Chrétien telescope that is being custom-built for the university.

“His passion for astronomy is topped only by his extreme love for teaching about it,” says Tere Linehan, assistant dean in the College of Science.

Roger Wilkins, LHD '04
Robinson Professor of History and American Culture

Roger Wilkins, a Robinson Professor of History and American Culture, came to Mason with broad experience in public affairs. During the Johnson administration, Wilkins served as an assistant attorney general. In a distinguished journalism career, he has written for both the New York Times and the Washington Post, and he was associate editor of the Washington Star. While on the editorial page staff of the Washington Post, he shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for Watergate coverage with Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and Herb Block (Herblock). His highly acclaimed autobiography, A Man's Life (1982), was reprinted in 1991, and he was co-editor with Fred Harris of Quiet Riots in 1988. His book, Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism, published in 2001, won the 2002 New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association Book Award for Adult Nonfiction. His public service activities include past chair of the Board of Trustees of the Africa-America Institute and membership on the board of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He is publisher of NAACP's journal Crisis and has served on the Board of Trustees of the University of the District of Columbia and on the District of Columbia Board of Education. He is also a past chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board. Wilkins holds a law degree from the University of Michigan.

Rick Davis
Associate Dean, College of Visual and Performing Arts

Rick Davis, DFA, is professor of theater, associate dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, and artistic director of the Center for the Arts, including the Theater of the First Amendment. In 1997, he received the university's Teaching Excellence Award. His teaching is described as supporting and encouraging. He inspires students to do their very best and, as one student stated, "His impact is immediately noticeable on our growing thought processes as arts professionals." Before coming to Mason in 1991, he was dramaturg and associate artistic director at Baltimore's Center Stage and had taught at Washington College, Johns Hopkins University, and Goucher College. A member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Davis has directed in professional theater and opera across the country and is an active translator and essayist. His translations of Ibsen (with Brian Johnston) have performed in leading regional theaters such as Berkeley Rep, Center Stage, Alliance Theatre, and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and his translations of Calderon de la Barca have resulted in both publication and production. He received his BA in theater and dramatics summa cum laude from Lawrence University in 1980 and his MFA in 1983 and DFA in 2003 in dramaturgy, dramatic literature, and criticism from Yale School of Drama.

Cynthia M. Lont
Professor of Communication

James B. Young, PhD Education '03
Instructor, Reference & Instructional Service Librarian

Doris A. Bitler
Associate Dean, Undergraduate Academic Affairs

Lloyd E. Duck
Associate Professor of Education

Don E. Kash
John T. Hazel, Sr. and Ruth D. Hazel Professor of Public Policy

Stuart S. Malawer
Distinguished Service Professor of Law and International Trade

Karen Oates
Professor of Interdisciplinary and Integrative Studies

Toni-Michelle Travis
Associate Professor of Public & International Affairs

Anthony Maiello
Professor of Music

Robert Hawkes
Assistant Professor of History and Art History

Kenneth A. Kovach
Professor of Management

Roberta M. Conti
College of Health and Human Services

Bruce B. Manchester
Professor of Communication

Kevin Avruch
Professor of Conflict Resolution and Anthropology

Henry J. Bindel, Jr.
Professor of Education

Mary C. Silva
Professor of Nursing

Sheryl A. Friedley
Professor of Communication

Peter Klappert
Professor of English

Brack Brown
Professor of Public and International Affairs

Lloyd de Boer
Dean, School of Business Administration

Hale N. Tongren
Professor of Marketing

Walter E. Williams
Professor of Economics

Warren D. Decker
Professor of Communication

Michael R. Kelley
Professor of Telecommunications

Carol J. Sears
Associate Professor of Education

Kenneth A. Kovach
Professor of Management

Kitty P. Smith
Associate Professor of Nursing and Health Science

Michael G. Emsley
Professor of Biology

Bruce B. Manchester
Professor of Communication

John A. Oppelt
Mathematics