UK Alumni Association Honors Great Teacher Award Recipients

The 2010 UK Alumni Association Great Teacher Award recipients are, front row, (l-r), J. Darlene Welsh, Dr. David R. Gore, Tracy A. Campbell and Andrea L. Dennis; back row, (l-r), Giuseppe (Joe) Labianca and Graham D. Rowles.

Six University of Kentucky professors have been recognized for their excellence in the classroom as the UK Alumni Association announces the recipients of its 2010 Great Teacher Awards.

Started in 1961, the Great Teacher Award is the oldest continuous award that recognizes teaching at UK. The nominations are made by students. Selection of the award recipients is made by the UK Alumni Association Great Teacher Award Committee, in cooperation with the student organization Omicron Delta Kappa. Great Teacher Award recipients each receive a citation, an engraved plaque, and a cash award.

The 2010 recipients are:

Tracy A. Campbell is professor of history and co-director of the Wendell H. Ford Public Policy Research Center in the UK College of Arts and Sciences. He joined the faculty in 1999. In his role at the Ford Center, Campbell has organized lectures that have brought nationally prominent political figures to campus, such as former presidential candidate George McGovern. He organized a symposium on the legacy of the Church Committee that included former vice president Walter Mondale and former Senator Walter Huddleston that was the first University of Kentucky event to be televised by C-Span.

Campbell serves as director of undergraduate studies in the History Department and teaches courses in modern U.S. history as well as Kentucky history. He has written several books, including “Short of the Glory: The Fall and Redemption of Edward F. Prichard, Jr.,” and the upcoming “Saarinen’s Cathedral: The Contested Terrains of the Gateway Arch.” He has lectured extensively on issues of election integrity and political history. In 2008, he served as George McGovern Visiting Professor of Public Leadership at Dakota Wesleyan University.

Campbell earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Kentucky in 1984 and a doctoral degree from Duke University.

Andrea L. Dennis is an assistant professor of law in the UK College of Law. She joined the faculty in 2006 and teaches criminal law, criminal trial process, criminal law and procedure seminar, children and the law, and family law. Her research interests focus on criminal adjudication, juvenile witnesses and snitching.

Dennis previously spent three years as an assistant federal public defender for the District of Maryland. Prior to that, she was a litigation associate at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., where she practiced commercial and intellectual property litigation, and white collar criminal defense. She also has experience civilly prosecuting child abuse and neglect cases in D.C. Superior Court, teaching legal analysis and writing at the University of Maryland School of Law, and developing national policies and programs for at-risk youth enrolled in Job Corps.  She was an editor for the Annual Survey of American Law and published “Because I am Black, Because I am Woman: Remedying the Sexual Harassment Experience of Black Women.” Immediately following graduation from law school, Dennis served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Raymond Jackson of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Dennis received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Maryland and earned a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Dr. David R. Gore is a faculty member in the restorative and prosthodontic division in the UK College of Dentistry. He is also course director for five separate courses.  He joined the faculty in 2001 after retiring from the military with 23 years of service. Gore’s U.S. Air Force experience includes a two-year general dentistry residency at Keesler Air Force Base, with a follow up assignment to MacDill Air Force Base. In 1993, he was deployed to the NAS Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to become the air transportable hospital dental commander. In 1996, Col. Gore was appointed tri-service dental commander at Howard Air Force Base in the Republic of Panama, where he was in charge of closing four dental facilities in preparation for turning over the Panama Canal on December 31, 1999.

In 2008 Gore was presented the American Student Dental Association Outstanding Faculty Award and the American Dental Educator’s Association recognized him with the UKCD Junior Faculty Award in 2004.

Gore received a bachelor’s degree from Campbellsville College, now Campbellsville University, in 1978 and earned a doctor of dental medicine degree from the University of Kentucky in 1982.

Giuseppe (Joe) Labianca is a Gatton Endowed Associate Professor of Management in the UK Gatton College of Business and Economics. He joined the faculty in 2006.  His research focuses on understanding interpersonal conflict from a social network perspective. This involves understanding how two people in conflict in the workplace are affected by third parties and by the broader formal and informal structure in which they are embedded.

Labianca previously taught at Tulane University and Emory University. He has taught undergraduate, MBA, professional MBA, executive MBA and doctoral level courses in conflict and negotiations, organization and management, organization theory and design, organizational behavior, human resources management and organizational change management. He received the Alumni Award for Excellence in Research and the Evening MBA Distinguished Core Educator Award from Emory’s Goizueta Business School, the Outstanding Young Researcher Award from Tulane’s Freeman School of Business and the Brand Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching from Penn State’s Smeal College of Business.  His research has appeared in numerous publications, including Science, Harvard Business Review, and Academy of Management Journal. He is a board member for Organization Science and an Executive Committee member of the Academy of Management’s Organization and Management Theory Division.

Labianca earned a degree in psychology from Harvard University in 1989, and a doctorate degree in business administration from Pennsylvania State University in 1998.

Graham D. Rowles is a professor of gerontology in the UK College of Public Health with joint appointments in the UK College of Nursing, the Department of Behavioral Science, the Department of Geography and the Department of Health Sciences. His research focuses on the lived experience of aging. A central theme of this work is exploration, employing qualitative methodologies, of the changing relationship between elders and their environments with advancing age and the implications of these relationships for health and well-being.

Rowles has conducted in-depth ethnographic research with elderly populations in urban, rural, and nursing home facility environments. Current research includes leadership of the Kentucky Elder Readiness Initiative, a statewide project to explore the implications for communities of the aging of the Baby Boom cohort. His publications include “Prisoners of Space?” and five co-edited volumes, and numerous book chapters and articles. He was the founding director of the Graduate Center for Gerontology and is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. He serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of Applied Geronotological and the Journal of Housing for the Elderly.

Rowles received bachelor’s and MSc degrees from Bristol University and earned a doctoral degree from Clark University.

J. Darlene Welsh is an assistant professor in the UK College of Nursing. She joined the faculty in 1990. She teaches senior baccalaureate students critical care principles and coordinates their senior capstone nursing course. Welsh also conducts cardiovascular research through the Center for Biobehavioral Research and the Rich Heart Program, focusing on the needs of patients with heart failure.

Welsh has focused on adult critical care nursing. She has worked as staff nurse, clinical educator and clinical specialist in hospitals throughout Kentucky with the majority of her clinical endeavors at University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Hospital. Her work with new graduates in the Nurse Residency Program supports their transition into practice. She has numerous publications and presentations.

Welsh received an associate degree in nursing from Morehead State University in 1977. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a doctoral degree in education from the University of Kentucky in 1987 and 2006, respectively. 

The recipients were honored at the Great Teacher Awards Banquet on Feb. 9 and were later recognized during the UK/Alabama basketball game in Rupp Arena.