College of Education
2005-06 Alumni Award Honorees

The College of Education honored 12 of its distinguished alumni on Nov. 17 at its annual Alumni Awards Ceremony. The 2005-06 honorees and their awards are:

Outstanding Leader

Thomas C. Healy

Thomas C. Healy has demonstrated outstanding leadership throughout his career in education spanning the past 40 years. Beginning as an elementary school teacher in Rochester, Minn., he quickly entered the field of higher education, teaching his first college course at Winona State College at age 23. Healy was later selected by Winona State as one of 15 fellows for the Teachers of Teacher Trainers (TTT) project at the University of Maryland.

In 1972, Healy became a charter member of the faculty at the University of North Florida (UNF). From 1978 to 1998, he served in nine different administrative positions ranging from athletic director to dean of Continuing Education to vice president for Government Relations. In 1998, he was appointed vice chancellor of Government Affairs and established a Washington office for the State University System of Florida. Within two years, the amount of funding earmarked in the Federal Budget for the then ten state universities in Florida almost tripled to a total of $125 million, much of which could be attributed to the inter-university approach which developed cooperative proposals utilizing the best researchers at multiple universities in the system.

In 2004, Healy was named the first vice president for Government Relations at Indiana University (IU). In this position, he has combined State Relations, Federal Relations and Hoosiers for Higher Education into one administrative unit and opened an IU Washington Office.

Healy earned his Ph.D. in education administration and supervision from the University of Maryland in 1972. He also holds a B.S. in elementary education and a M.S. in elementary school administration, awarded in 1965 and 1968 respectively by Winona State College - now Winona State University, Minn.

Outstanding Leader

William C. Strasser

William C. Strasser, Jr. is honored for his exceptional leadership over the past 35 years in the administration of public secondary and higher education. In the 1950s and l96Os he held various teaching and research positions in public education as well as administrative roles in public relations, personnel administration, university administration, and research in national education policy.

Perhaps his most significant responsibility was as president of Montgomery College, Md. In that position he led the county-wide development of a long-range master plan to transform Montgomery Junior College into a highly diversified, three-campus community college, renamed Montgomery College. Once the master plan was approved, Strasser again took the lead in securing financing and overseeing the plan's implementation. During his 13-year presidency, enrollments and course offerings quadrupled, a new campus at Germantown was created, the Takoma Park Campus was redeveloped and expanded, the Rockville Campus more than doubled in capacity, and a major off-campus program of continuing adult education was established.

A well-respected academic, Strasser has published in various national journals and has presented at numerous regional and national forums throughout his career. He was a Carnegie Postdoctoral Fellow in the Administration of Higher Education at the University of Michigan and a Visiting Scholar at the University of California-Berkeley. Now retired, he is President Emeritus and a Professor Emeritus of Montgomery College.

Strasser holds a Ph. D. in education administration (1961), an M. A. in arts and humanities (1954) and a B.A. in secondary education English (1952), all from the University of Maryland College of Education.

Outstanding New Professional

Heath E. Morrison

Heath E. Morrison , in his position as a director of School Performance, has the responsibility of overseeing 34 elementary and secondary schools in Montgomery County, Md. His leadership experience stems from his time as principal of Thomas Stone High School and John Hanson Middle School in Waldorf, Md., where test scores and AP enrollments rose during his tenure. The two schools received many accolades while he was principal, including Thomas Stone High's recognition by Newsweek as a top 3 percent performing school in the country and a Congressional citation from Maryland congressman, the Honorable Steny H. Hoyer.

Morrison was named Maryland Principal of the Year in 2004, a Washington Post Distinguished Leader in 2003, and Charles County's Principal of the Year in 2003. He currently co-chairs a national task force on the principalship through the National Association of Secondary School Principals. On a state level, he has been a member of the K- 16 Maryland Leadership Council, the Aspiring Leadership Committee, and the Professional Development Advisory Council. The principalship continues to be an area of passion for Morrison, and through his work with the national task force, his position as Director of School Performance, and his instruction of aspiring leaders through local outreach programs, he seeks to help others contend with the astronomical changes and expectations school leaders are faced with every day.

Morrison earned his M.Ed. in 1994 and his Ph.D. in 2005, both from the Department of Education Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland. He also holds a B.A. degree from the College of William and Mary.

Outstanding Professional

Bruce W. Sorter

Bruce W. Sorter is recognized for his outstanding work within his profession. For 20 years he was a state specialist in Community Resource Development with the Maryland Cooperative Extension Service, where he developed and contributed to many educational programs on topics such as organization development, citizen participation, program planning, team building, energy conservation, and crime prevention. Through his training of trainers he facilitated the education of hundreds of thousands within the United States, Brazil and Poland.

After retiring from the Air Force Reserve as a Lt. Colonel, Sorter served as coordinator of military personnel for the Office of Emergency Preparedness, Prince George's County, Md. Over the years he has been recognized for his contributions to the field with various state, national, and international awards, including appearing in Who's Who in Education, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the World .

In 1972 Sorter earned his Ph.D. in human and community development from the University of Maryland, where he had also received his bachelor's degree in sociology in 1967. He was awarded a master's degree in community planning from Howard University in 1969.

Outstanding Professional

Blossom H. Patterson

Blossom H. Patterson 's work in the application of statistics to cancer prevention is truly exceptional. As a National Cancer Institute researcher, she worked with colleagues early in her career to develop a method to use national survey data to characterize the U.S. diet. This work received national press and television coverage and formed the basis for the development of the Five-a-Day for Better Health Program. In addition, a major focus of her work throughout her career has been the investigation of the metabolism of selenium, a potential cancer prevention agent. In collaboration with colleagues, she has designed and conducted a major human study to characterize changes in selenium metabolism resulting from long-term supplementation.

Patterson is a widely-published author and has presented papers in statistics and experimental biology at national and international conferences. Her application of latent class analysis techniques to national survey data on diet was cited as the best application paper of 2002 by the Journal of the American Statistical Association .

Patterson obtained her doctorate and master's degree from the Department of Measurement, Statistics and Evaluation at the University of Maryland. She also holds a bachelor's degree in history from Smith College in Northampton, Mass.

Outstanding New Scholar

Peggy Van Meter

Peggy Van Meter has distinguished herself as an outstanding new scholar with her work on text processing. As an active researcher, she has engaged in projects to develop reading interventions for young students and to study effective strategies for learning from text. Her work has appeared in top journals, she has presented at several national conferences, and has successfully secured internal as well as external funding from the U.S. Department of Education. Currently the Professor-in-Charge of the Educational Psychology program at The Pennsylvania State University, she was recently tenured as an associate professor of education.

Van Meter earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Human Development at the University of Maryland, in 1997. In 1990, she received her master's degree in psychology from Wake Forest University. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from Bowling Green State University, Ohio.

Outstanding New Scholar

Jairo Nelson Fuertes

Jairo Nelson Fuertes' research examining variables of multiculturalism in psychotherapy has made advances in developing a theory and measure of multicultural awareness called Universal-Diverse Orientation. He has also studied the role of multicultural competencies in counseling process and outcome, and recently began work with colleagues at Maryland to develop the theory and measure of the real relationship in counseling.

Originally from Santa Fe de Bogota, Colombia, Fuertes came to the United States at age 10 in 1974. He is the product of the Montgomery County, Md., public school system, which he says provided him with an excellent and well-rounded education in English, mathematics, science and, of course, psychology. He attended the University of Maryland as an undergraduate and was awarded a B.A. in psychology in 1987. He later pursued a master's degree in college student personnel administration, which he received in 1992 from the Department of Counseling and Personnel Services. It was during his master's program that Fuertes was encouraged by a faculty member to consider doctoral training. In 1996 he earned his Ph.D. in counseling psychology, also from the University of Maryland.

After graduation, he accepted a position as an assistant professor at the University of Akron, where he taught, published, and received clients at their counseling center. At this point in his career, Fuertes says he realized the balance between academia and clinical work at the counseling center was ideal and he has maintained this balance since. Now an associate professor of education at Fordham University, Fuertes also works at the Baruch College counseling center as staff psychologist and supervisor of master's and doctoral trainees.

Outstanding Scholar

James M. O'Neil

James M. O'Neil is nationally known for his research and scholarship on men and masculinity, gender role conflict, psychology of men and women, primary prevention, and violence and victimization. He has published 19 books chapters, 55 journal articles, and two psychological measures. He is also the author of the Gender Role Conflict Scale (GRCS) - a widely used measure of men's conflict with their gender roles that has been used in over 200 research studies. His most recent book (with Michele Harway) is entitled, What Causes Men's Violence Against Women?

O'Neil is a professor of Family Studies and Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut, and a licensed psychologist in private practice in South Windsor, Conn. In 1991, he was awarded a Fulbright Teaching Scholarship by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars to lecture in the former Soviet Union. In 1995, he was awarded Teaching Fellow status by the University of Connecticut for his outstanding excellence and dedication to the university teaching profession. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association in Divisions 17, 35, 43, 51, and 52. He is also one of the founding members of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity (SPSMM), Division 51, of the American Psychological Association. The SPSMM named him Researcher of the Year in 1997 for his 20-year research program on men's gender role conflict.

O'Neil earned his Ph.D. and M.A. from the Department of Counseling and Personnel Services at the University of Maryland in 1975 and 1972 respectively. In 1970, He received his B.A. in history-education from Le Moyne College, Syracuse, N.Y.

Outstanding Teacher

Walter R. Lee

Walter R. "Skipp" Lee has been described as "a master teacher whose enthusiasm for teaching is an inspiration to the profession." C urrently a sports medicine and physical education teacher at Chesapeake High School in Anne Arundel County, he serves as his department chair, and is a contributing member of the Maryland Voluntary State Curriculum writing committee charged with determining the future of physical education offerings in Maryland.

Lee also coaches the Chesapeake High School Varsity Girls and Boys Track and Field teams, for which he has received many awards and recognitions. He was named the National Association of Sport and Physical Education Secondary Teacher of the Year and is a recent recipient of the Simon A. McNeely Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to physical education. In addition, because of his award-winning physical education department, Chesapeake High School was selected as a 2005-06 Demonstration School by the Maryland Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance in recognition of its exemplary physical education program.

Lee was awarded the prestigious Phillip Merrill Presidential Scholars Award in 2005 and has been recognized three times in Who's Who in American Educators . He is also the Anne Arundel County Teacher of the Year, a finalist in the Maryland State Department of Education Teacher of the Year program, and the Eastern District Association nominee for National Secondary Teacher of the Year.

Lee earned a bachelor's degree in health and human performance, physical education, in 1987 from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University Of Maryland. He also holds an M. A. in administration and supervision that he earned in 1991 from Bowie State University.

Outstanding Teacher

Karin Stewart

Karin Stewart is honored by the College of Education for her outstanding dedication to the field of teaching. She has been a middle school teacher for 11 years and has experience teaching multiple subjects including language arts, reading, history, and mathematics.

A mathematics teacher at Calvert Middle School, Stewart donates her time to mentor at-risk students while facilitating after-school and Saturday math intervention programs. In addition, she is a member of the School Improvement Team as well as two vertical math teams that promote successful student articulation in mathematics from elementary through high school. She also serves as a mentor to new teachers entering the field.

Much loved by her students, the award Stewart holds most dear is the Calvert County's 2002 Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year, for which she was secretly nominated by her students. Other honors include Calvert Middle School's 2002 and 2005 Teacher of the Year awards (as history and math teacher), Calvert County's 2005 Teacher of the Year award, and she is also a finalist in the Maryland State Department of Education Teacher of the Year program. Stewart manages to remain quite involved in her community as an Upwards basketball coach, Calvert National Little League softball coach, and a volunteer Hands-On-Science teacher.

In 1988, she graduated with her bachelor's degree in elementary education from the University of Maryland College of Education. Stewart earned a master's in curriculum and instruction in 2003 from McDaniel College in Westminster, Md.

Outstanding Entrepreneur

Marilyn A. Harris

Marilyn A. Harris is honored as the Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year. As vice president of Federal and International Government Affairs for the newly independent Marathon Oil Company, she heads its Washington office and is responsible for the interface of the company with Congress, the federal government, international organizations, trade associations, and the diplomatic corps. Before this position, Harris was general manager of Federal Governmental Affairs for USX Corporation (U.S. Steel and Marathon Oil) and was appointed President of the USX Foundation, Inc. in 1997.

Harris' vast experience with senior policy stems from her time working with the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. For eight years she served as Chief Executive Administrator of the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs and was the key staff person handling the creation of the Cabinet Department of Education. She was also Chief of Staff to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Before entering government, Harris was an instructor at the University of Maryland for three years in the department formerly called Communications Arts and Theatre. She was also a speech therapist and elementary school teacher at public schools in Missouri and in Montreal and Quebec, Canada.

Quite active in her community, Harris currently serves on the Advisory Committee of the Archer Center of the University of Texas, the Regional Council of Texas Christian University, plus the finance committees supporting Hospice Care of the Greater Washington area, Vital Voices, March of Dimes, and the Mosaic Foundation.

Harris earned her Ph.D. in human development from the University of Maryland College of Education in 1982. She holds a Master of Arts degree and a Bachelor of Science degree in education from the University of Missouri.

Outstanding Service to the College of Education

Marie Smith Davidson

Marie Smith Davidson is recognized for her distinguished service to the College of Education and the University of Maryland. A cum laude graduate of Dillard University, Davidson came to the University of Maryland campus to pursue a master's degree in psychiatry, which she received in 1967. She later returned as a doctoral student, earning her Ph.D. in human development in 1971, and then joining the department as a member of faculty. Early in her career, Davidson received and administered the College of Education's first Teacher Corps grant. She also represented the college on the Graduate Council, the General Research Board, and on campus-wide search committees.

In 1978 Davidson was appointed Acting Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research. During this time she also served as a consultant to John Samson Toll, president of the University of Maryland System. In 1980, she became Acting Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and two years later was permanently named to the position, where she remained until her appointment as Executive Assistant to University of Maryland President William E. "Brit" Kirwan in August 1988. Soon after, Davidson was appointed as the president's Chief of Staff, serving as his principal advisor on policy and other matters. A member of the president's Cabinet and the Administrative Council, she facilitated communication between the president and vice presidents, the University System of Maryland administration, the Board of Regents, and the Maryland Higher Education Commission. She also represented the President on the College Park Senate Executive Committee and on the Senate's Committee on Faculty Affairs.

Recognized as an administrator of keen insight and uncommon ability, Davidson's many accomplishments have been recognized with several awards and honors. In 1984, she was chosen as the University's Outstanding Woman of the Year and on the occasion of the College of Education's 75 th Anniversary in 1996, she was honored as one of its distinguished alumni. In 1997, the Black Faculty and Staff Association presented Davidson an Award of Excellence in recognition of her steady vision and her role in promoting the University of Maryland's racial and ethnic diversity. She has also received the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Staff and Faculty Association's Defender of Diversity Award, which was previously awarded only to a member of the Board of Regents, the Governor of Maryland, and the President of the University. In 1998, Davidson was awarded the President's Medal - the university's highest honor.

Although retired from the University of Maryland since 2000, Davidson remains active with the College of Education, serving on the Center for Young Children Special Study Commission and as a member of the college's Board of Visitors.