For the first time in recent history, the Academic Federation will give the James H. Meyer Distinguished Achievement Award to two UC Davis members in the same year.
Kevin Roddy of medieval studies and the writing program and a longtime lynchpin of the Academic Federation, and Judith Kysh from the Division of Education will give lectures at the Jan. 9 dinner in their honor at the University Club.
The Distinguished Achievement Award and Lecture was initiated in 1971 to recognize exceptional career achievement among members of the Academic Federation on the Davis campus. Recipients are chosen from candidates nominated by their peers.
The Academic Federation is an organization of about 850 non-tenured faculty members who include lecturers, researchers, li-brarians, clinical and adjunct professors and Cooperative Extension specialists, among others.
Kevin Roddy
Roddy holds a dual appointment as a lecturer in medieval studies (since 1976) and in the writing program, and was formerly director of the Faculty Center for Teaching and Technology.
In his nomination, he was praised for his steady flow of research activities in medieval culture. Roddy has served as the secretary-treasurer and conference coordinator of the Medieval Association of the Pacific, as well as co-chair of a major conference of the association.
His dedication to teaching and to the field of medieval studies has been central to the health of the humanities at UC Davis, says nominator Gail Finney, professor of German and comparative literature.
"It is, in fact, no exaggeration to claim that the Medieval Studies program, a tiny island within the small sea represented by the hu-manities at Davis, owes its survival to Kevin Roddy," Finney writes.
"With his thoroughgoing expertise in both medieval studies and computing, Kevin Roddy is perfectly equipped to bring the en-lightenment of computer technology to us non-technological humanists at UC Davis."
When he won a federation teaching award in 1995, Roddy explained the philosophy behind his goals as a teacher and scholar:
"It is not so much that ignorance is an enemy, but that our perspective is so limited and confused in the name of unexamined and imperfect knowledge; humanity bestows privilege on the familiar and demonizes the unknown. The response must be to investigate, to know, to teach, to investigate."
Roddy’s command of medieval studies is accompanied by his expertise in computer technology, which dates to the early 1980s, when most faculty members had never seen a personal computer. Since then, he has been heavily involved in bringing technology to the classroom and to scholarly research.
In the various positions he has held in computers in the humanities, he has taught students, staff and faculty members to use a variety of operating systems and programming languages. He has accumulated considerable experience in computer projects related to the humanities, involving concordances, information retrieval and data-based management.
He remains active in scholarship and has published numerous articles on both medieval topics and computing. His current research interests involve the hermetic tradition in Irish monasticism.
In regards to campus service, Roddy has served as the chair of four major Academic Federation committees and as secretary, vice-chair and, for two years, as chair of the federation.
Judith Kysh
Kysh was nominated for her outstanding and extensive contributions in mathematics education. She came to Davis in 1982 as director for the Northern California Mathematics Project. Since that time, her efforts have inspired thousands of K-12 teachers to learn more mathematics and to become more reflective of their mathematics teaching.
Her work has led to changes in the way in which mathematics is taught in many classrooms in California.
"Perhaps one of Judy’s most remarkable contributions," write mathematics professors Evelyn Silvia and Tom Sallee,"has been her empowerment of teachers; a striking number of teachers with whom she has worked have evolved from classroom instructors to teacher leaders in their schools, districts, and/or statewide initiatives aimed at improving the quality of mathematics instruction."
She has encouraged many teachers to create their own visions of improved mathematics instruction. She has the ability to interweave her teaching experience with her knowledge of research, her nominators said.
"Math is a great brain stimulant," she says. "After you’ve struggled with a problem and finally solved it, something must be released in the brain that gives great pleasure. It has to be good for you."
Kysh has served as a catalyst for sharing ideas among teachers through her involvement with the College Preparatory Mathematics Program, the Next Big Steps Project, the Portfolio Assessment Project,and the Northern California Mathematics Project.
As a successful grant writer, Kysh’s capacity to build on her extensive knowledge has been extremely useful in developing both research based curriculum and staff development programs for K-12 mathematics.