The ceremony recognizes outstanding faculty members and students throughout the university system. A total of 16 faculty members will be honored from Bloomington, South Bend and Southeast.

This is the largest number of awards that IU South Bend faculty members have received at these annual ceremonies established to remember the university’s founding in 1820.

The four faculty members, their positions and the awards are: Gretchen Anderson, associate professor of chemistry, the Herman Frederic Lieber Memorial Award for teaching excellence; Linda Chen, associate professor of political science, the Wilbert Hites Mentoring Award; Betsy Lucal, associate professor of sociology, Sylvia E. Bowman Award for teaching excellence; and Elizabeth Mooney, lecturer of sociology, the Part-Time Teaching Award.

The Herman Frederic Lieber Award was originally sponsored by the IU Foundation and is now sponsored by Mrs. Herman Lieber of Indianapolis.

The Wilbert Hites Mentoring Award was established by Ronald A. Hites, Distinguished Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs at IU Bloomington, in honor of his late father. Hites Award recipients must display outstanding mentoring qualities that provide students or colleagues with the academic support, advice and encouragement needed to establish their own career and educational goals.

Sylvia E. Bowman Award was a respected scholar and author who gave 34 years of service to IU as a professor, academic administrator and chancellor for regional campus administration. The Bowman Award, established in 1994, honors exemplary faculty members in discipline areas related to American civilization.

The four educators represent 48 years of service to IU South Bend.

Alfred Guillaume, vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, said IU South Bend is proud of the educators. “They are sterling examples of the quality teaching of students that happens every day here. Each one has a strong interest in student development.”

Anderson joined the chemistry department in 1992 coming from post-doctoral work at Ohio State University. She is a graduate of State University of New York, Albany; and University of Minnesota.

Anderson is a recipient of several other teaching awards on campus including three Trustee Teaching Awards and two Teaching Excellence Recognition Awards.

Her research interests are detoxification mechanisms for arsenical compounds, microbial metabolism of heavy metals, redox reactions and electronic transfer processes in proteins, structure/function relationships.

Chen is the chair of the Department of Political Science at IU South Bend. She joined the department in 1991 coming from Rhodes College, Memphis, Tenn. She also lectured at Trinity College, Connecticut; University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts.

She also served as the acting chair of the Department of Foreign Language, and the interim director of Women’s Studies, both at IU South Bend.

Chen also has received the Teaching Excellence Recognition Award from IU and she was named the Woman Educator of the Year Award from the YWCA in 2002.

She teaches introductory political science as well as third world politics, Latin American politics, terrorism and political violence, and women and politics.

Lucal joined the IU South Bend Department of Sociology in 1998 coming from an assistant professorship at the State University of New York-Brockport. She also served as a visiting assistant professor from 1996-97 at IU South Bend; a lecturer at University of Akron, and instructor at Kent State University-East Liverpool, Kent State University-Salem and Youngstown State University.

She received her bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. from Kent State.

Lucal received three Trustee Teaching Awards, a Distinguished Teaching Award and a Faculty of the Year Award from the Student Government Association.

Mooney has been an associate faculty member at IU South Bend since 1984. She also currently teaches at Goshen College and she taught at Roosevelt University, Chicago; Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo; Kalamazoo College, and IU Bloomington.

She served as the executive director of Planned Parenthood of North Central Indiana, Inc., from 1983 to 1994, and in several roles at Planned Parenthood, Chicago.

Mooney was a research associate at the Kinsey Institute from 1968 to 1975. She is a certified social worker, sex therapist, sex educator, and supervisor and trainer of sex educators and therapists.

She is a graduate of the Beloit College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Mooney received the Teaching Excellence Recognition Award from IU South Bend.