Awards

	Sherman Alexie's National Book Award
	Jeffrey Eaton Named Marshall Scholar
	Other Awards, Honors, and Professorships

 

Alexie Wins National Book Award for Young People's Literature

	Sherman Alexie. Photo by Rob Casey.

When Sherman Alexie set out to write a novel for young adults, he saw no need
to sugarcoat the truth. “The tough stuff doesn’t affect kids whatsoever,” says Alexie, artist in residence in the Department of American Ethnic Studies. “It’s their parents and teachers who get all freaked out and repressed about it.”

So it should come as no surprise that Alexie’s recent book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, is unflinchingly honest as it chronicles a year in the life of Junior, a bright teenager living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. The book recently received the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

When Junior decides to attend an all-white school off the reservation— encouraged by Mr. P, a white teacher at the reservation school—he is viewed as a traitor by his old friends and as an outsider by his new classmates. He also experiences several personal tragedies linked to poverty and alcoholism. Yet he perseveres, recognizing the truth in Mr. P’s words: “Son, you’re going to find more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from this sad, sad, sad reservation.”

Alexie acknowledges that much of the book is autobiographical. Like Junior, Alexie was raised on the Spokane Reservation and made the difficult decision to attend an all-white school off the reservation. And like Junior, he was ostracized for that decision. “But Junior was a lot smarter and funnier than I was,” says Alexie. “He was driven by compassion and humor. I was driven by arrogance. I was bloodthirsty. I guess I still am.”

That trait has served Alexie well. Since graduating from Washington State University, he has written 10 books of poetry, 4 novels, 3 short story collections, and 2 screenplays, garnering numerous awards for his work. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is his first book aimed at teens.

To write for a younger audience, Alexie made some slight modifications to his writing, making his sentence structure slightly less complex. But more important, he had to think like a teen.

“You have to write about stuff that kids think about, not stuff that adults think they think about,” he explains. “In some ways it’s like method acting, trying to remember what you were experiencing at that age.”

Although marketed as a young adult novel, the book has proven to be popular with adults as well. That has been especially true on the Spokane Reservation,
says Alexie, where “people are loving this book.” He adds, “I’ve had a long career, but this book has transcended all of that. It has sold more copies, and it has already had more of a cultural impact.”

Asked why this novel resonates with people, Alexie pauses for a moment. “Part of it, I think, is that the kid is very forgiving,” he says. “The world is filled with people who vehemently hate each other, especially right now. So a quiet story about a kid crossing those boundaries successfully—a celebrated border crossing—appeals.”

 

Eaton Named Marshall Scholar

	Jeffrey Eaton. Photo by Mary Levin.

It wasn’t his first award, and it almost certainly won’t be his last. But when UW senior Jeffrey Eaton learned he had been named a Marshall scholar—one of
the highest awards available to college graduates in the U.S.—he was “ecstatic.” The award provides a full scholarship for graduate study in England at a British university of the student’s choice. About 40 American students receive the scholarship each year.

Eaton will graduate in June with a master’s degree in statistics and bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and sociology. A bass player in the University of Washington Symphony, he also completed a minor in music. Previous honors during his years at the UW include the 2005 UW Sophomore Medal, a 2006 Goldwater Scholarship, a 2006 College of Arts & Sciences Under-graduate Research Award, a Research Fellowship for Advanced Undergraduates, and a Mary Gates Venture Fellowship.

Heading to England, Eaton hopes to earn a doctorate in infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College in London. He studies mathematical modeling of infectious disease epidemics, such as HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and says that Imperial College is doing the best work on the topic.

“It’s a graduate program I’ve been interested in for several years, but it’s very hard for Americans to get funding,” he told University Week.

Eaton was also a finalist for a Rhodes scholarship this year, but after receiving the Marshall scholarship he declined a Rhodes interview because the scholarship is limited to Oxford University.

 

Other Awards, Honors, and Professorships

Gardner M. Brown, professor emeritus of economics, was honored by the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists with both the 2007 Fellows Award and the 2007 Publication of Enduring Quality Award, the latter for his 1974 book, Waterfowl and Wetlands: Toward Bio-Economic Analysis (with Judd Hammack).

Gary Christian, professor emeritus of chemistry, is an inaugural inductee into University of Maryland’s Circle of Discovery, an honor conferred on individuals for major research contributions in chemistry or in the biosciences.

Bernard Evans, emeritus professor of earth and space sciences, has been awarded the 2008 Roebling Medal from the Mineralogical Society of America, honoring his lifetime of achievement in mineralogy and petrology.

Richard T. Gray, professor of Germanics, has been renewed for another term as Alice B. Lockwood Professor of the Humanities.

Tom Hankins, professor emeritus of history, was awarded the Price/Webster prize of the History of Science Society for an outstanding essay published in the journal Isis during the last three years.

Paula R.L. Heron, professor of physics, has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Moon-Ho Jung, associate professor of history, has won the History Book Award of the Association for Asian American Studies for his book, Coolies and Cane.

Juliet McMains, assistant professor of dance, was recognized for her book Glamour Addiction, selected as one of CHOICE’s Outstanding Academic Titles for 2007. McMains was also a finalist for the Theatre Library Association Book Award.

Jim Morrow, professor of mathematics, has received the 2008 Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics, presented by the Mathematical Association of America.

Linda Nash, associate professor of history, won the John H. Dunning Prize from the American Historical Association for her book, Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge.

Robert Pekkanen, chair of the Japan Studies Program in the Jackson School of International Studies and an assistant professor of history, has been selected as a recipient of the 2008 Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize for his book, Japan’s Dual Civil Society: Members Without Advocates.

The Department of Physics’ Physics Education Group, led by professors Lillian C. McDermott, Peter S. Shaffer, and Paula R.L. Heron, received the 2008 Excellence in Physics Education Award of the American Physical Society.  The award was established to honor groups that have made a sustained commitment to excellence in physics education. 

The Department of Psychology’s clinical training program has been awarded one of two 2008 Innovation Awards from the Board of Educational Affairs of the American Psychological Association.

Vicente Rafael, professor of history, was awarded the Grant Goodman Prize, a lifetime achievement award, from the Philippine Studies Group of the Association for Asian Studies. Rafael also was named a 2007-2008 UW Solomon Katz Distinguished Lecturer.

Barbara Reskin, professor of sociology, has been selected as the 2008 recipient of the American Sociological Association’s W.E.B. DuBois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award—the ASA’s highest award—recognizing outstanding commitment to the discipline and a career of scholarship that has contributed significantly to the advancement of sociology.

Katherine Stovel, associate professor of sociology, has received a fellowship to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences for 2008-09.

 

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