Professional News: May 30, 2003

Henry Petroski, Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering, received the honorary degree of Doctor of Pedagogy from Manhattan College, his alma mater, on May 18. The degree, his fourth honorary doctorate, was conferred upon him at the college's sesquicentennial commencement, at which he delivered the principal address.

Alex Roland, professor of history, has received the annual Gen. James H. Doolittle Award for Leadership in Aerospace Policy from the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Roland was honored for his work in describing the roles that technology and economies have played in the development of American achievements in aviation.

Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society has been elected to the 2003 Associations Advance America Honor Roll, a national awards competition sponsored by the American Society of Association Executives in Washington, D.C.

The award recognizes Sigma Xi's Ethics Program, which is under the direction of John F. Ahearne, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Ahearne is an adjunct faculty member at Duke, where he has taught ethics courses.

An international honor society of research scientists and engineers, Sigma Xi has 13 chapters in North Carolina, including one at Duke.

Christianity Today honored books by two members of the Duke Divinity School community in the June 2003 issue.

The Company of Preachers, edited by Richard Lischer, the James T. and Alice Mead Cleland professor of preaching, was recognized as the best book in the category of church and pastoral leadership. Chris P. Rice, a current divinity student, received an award for merit in Christianity and culture for Grace Matters.

In The Company of Preachers, Lischer gathers the writings of figures as wide-ranging as Augustine, Jonathan Edwards and Barbara Brown Taylor to provide timeless and timely advice on good preaching. The theological and historical cross-section of the church's traditions of preaching in the book will give preachers, students of ministry, and anyone looking for examples of powerful Christian speech a valuable resource.

Rice, a white New Englander, recounts his relationship with Spencer Perkins, an African-American from the South, in the memoir, Grace Matters: A True Story of Race, Friendship, and Faith in the Heart of the South. The action unfolds in the context of Antioch, an interracial Christian commune in Mississippi.

Duke Magazine, the alumni magazine published by the Alumni Affairs office, and the Duke News Service have both won national awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). CASE awarded the magazine a gold medal in the category Higher Education Reporting. "The judges were impressed with your magazine's willingness and ability to tackle solid higher education issues and bring a national perspective to the specific challenges of your own university," wrote the judging coordinator.

The publication also won a bronze medal for University Magazines under 75,000 circulation. A gold in the design category for spreads was awarded for the "Face Value" department that featured Duke's police chief. Duke Magazine is published bimonthly. Robert J. Bliwise is editor, Sam Hull is associate editor, and Kim Koster is the former features editor. Maxine Mills Graphic Design is the designer.

The Duke News Service received a silver award in the General News Writing category. The News Service submitted stories by Sally Hicks on Duke historian Elizabeth Fenn and the special war issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly; by Cabell Smith on the Reel Evil film festival; by Keith Lawrence on David Paletz' edited book on political cartoons in the Arab media; and Geoffrey Mock on Duke artist-in-residence Kelly Heaton.