Purdue OKs Professorships, New Names
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThree named professorships have been approved by the Purdue University Board of Trustees. They are in nursing, educational psychology and engineering education. The university is also renaming a forestry and natural resources farm after former U.S. Senator Richard Lugar and a floor of the Krannert Building in honor of Beck's Hybrids. September 26, 2014
News Release
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Friday (Sept. 26) voted to ratify three named professorships and approved naming the seventh floor of the Krannert Building the Beck's Floor for Agricultural Economics.
Trustees also voted to change the academic reporting of the Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory from the College of Agriculture to the College of Veterinary Medicine, approved resolutions of appreciation for seven donors who have given $1 million or more to Purdue, and approved renaming a university forestry and natural resources farm in honor of former Sen. Richard Lugar.
Gregory Arling was approved as the Katherine Birck Chair in the School of Nursing. Arling, who started his position this fall, was associate professor of medicine in the Division of General Medicine and Geriatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine from 2007-14. He has been a researcher at both the Indiana University Center for Aging Research and the Regenstrief Institute.
He was a visiting associate professor in the Indiana University Center for Health Policy in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis from 2006-07. From 1995-2007 he was an associate professor of health administration in the Department of Public Affairs of the Block School of Business and Public Administration at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He was a visiting professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota from 2002-06.
Arling also has served as a research scientist for the Center for Health Systems Research and Analysis at the University of Wisconsin, was director of the Virginia Center on Aging at Virginia Commonwealth University, and was an assistant and associate professor of gerontology in the Medical College of Virginia at VCU.
He is a fellow in the Gerontological Society of America and the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. He has served as a reviewer for Annals of Internal Medicine, The Gerontologist, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Journal of Aging and Health, and the Journal of Applied Gerontology.
Arling earned his bachelor's degree from Augustana College and received his master's degree and doctorate from the University of Illinois.
The Katherine Birck Chair in the School of Nursing was made possible by a gift from Michael J. Birck in honor of his wife, Katherine Birck. A Purdue alumnus and former member of the Purdue Board of Trustees, Michael Birck is the co-founder of Tellabs Inc.
Ming Ming Chiu was appointed to the Charles R. Hicks Professorship of Educational Psychology. He came to Purdue this fall from the University at Buffalo, where he was a professor of learning and instruction from 2008-14. Before that, he was an assistant and associate professor of educational psychology from 1998-2008 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He also taught mathematics and science to diverse students (teenagers finishing jail sentences, gifted children and Vietnamese immigrants) in preschool, elementary school, middle school and high school for five years in New York City and Berkeley, California.
Chiu said he invents methods to analyze big data. The International Society of the Learning Sciences recognized Chiu's statistical discourse analysis as a central methodology in 2013. His research has appeared in more than 140 publications, three television broadcasts, 15 radio broadcasts and 147 news stories in 20 nations.
Chiu received his bachelor's degree from Columbia University, his master's degree from Harvard University and his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.
The professorship was established by Davis Nichols, one of professor Charles Hicks' doctoral students, in appreciation of Hicks' dedication to scholarship and his love of teaching.
Michael C. Loui was approved as the Dale and Suzi Gallagher Professor in Engineering Education. He came to Purdue this fall from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was assistant professor, associate professor and professor of electrical and computer engineering, beginning in 1982. He also was a University Distinguished Teacher-Scholar at the University of Illinois, and from 1996-2000 he was associate dean of the Graduate College.
His research interests include computational complexity theory, professional ethics and engineering education research. From 1990-91 he directed the theory of computing program at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Loui serves as editor of the Journal of Engineering Education and as a member of the editorial boards of College Teaching and Accountability in Research. He also is a Carnegie Scholar and an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers fellow.
He earned his bachelor's degree from Yale University and his master's degree and doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dale and Suzi Gallagher provided funds for two Gallagher professorships, one in the College of Education and one in the College of Engineering. Dale Gallagher received a bachelor's degree from Purdue in industrial engineering in 1969, and Suzi Gallagher received a bachelor's degree from Purdue's College of Liberal Arts in 1970. Dale Gallagher is retired from PepsiCo, where he served as senior vice president of operations for Frito Lay in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Suzi Gallagher is a retired academic language therapist.
In other business, trustees also voted to name a 5,000-square-foot-space on the seventh floor of the Krannert building Beck's Floor for Agricultural Economics. Jay T. Akridge, Glenn W. Sample Dean of the College of Agriculture, said the space will be repurposed to house the Center for Food and Agricultural Business and the Center for Commercial Agriculture, to provide distance-education studio capacity, and to provide conference and experiential learning space for Extension and undergraduate and graduate students.
“Faculty and staff of the two centers will focus on addressing the management and technological challenges of production agriculture and agribusiness management,” Akridge said. “This group also will focus efforts on educating tomorrow's leaders through a variety of undergraduate and experiential learning activities. The existing space does not allow for growth of these key programs.”
A donation of $1.4 million by Beck's Hybrids is expected to cover the project’s cost, Akridge said.
Trustees also approved having the Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory report to the College of Veterinary Medicine instead of the College of Agriculture. Akridge and Willie M. Reed, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, said that administration of the laboratory is a better fit under the College of Veterinary Medicine. The laboratory and Veterinary Teaching Hospital share a common client base and offer complementary services.
They also said veterinarians conducting animal disease research and developing diagnostic tests who work in the laboratory are faculty members appointed in the Department of Comparative Pathobiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Since the College of Veterinary Medicine is responsible for all faculty oversight, having the reporting lines flow through the college will expedite administrative processes. Additionally, in its 2011 accreditation review of the College of Veterinary Medicine, the American Veterinary Medical Association Council on Education recommended that the laboratory reporting lines flow through the College of Veterinary Medicine.
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