Please join me in congratulating the 2021 recipients for the Chancellor’s and Provost’s awards for Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity.
The recipient of the Chancellor's award for Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity is Dr. Andy Heckert.
Dr. Heckert is a Professor in the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences and the Director of Appalachian State University’s McKinney Geology Teaching Museum. Dr. Heckert is one of the world’s leading experts in Triassic vertebrate paleontology. He conducts research on the fossil record, focusing on vertebrates from the Triassic period, especially those that lived ~225-200 million years ago. The monograph based on his dissertation is the primary reference for Upper Triassic microvertebrate assemblages of the American Southwest. Heckert joined Appalachian State University in 2005 and since then has mentored over 50 undergraduate research students. Dr. Heckert is the recipient of numerous awards, including Appalachian State University’s 2015 Donald W. Sink Outstanding Scholar Award, the 2017 Undergraduate Research Mentorship Experience award, and the 2011 North Carolina Science Teachers’ Association Outstanding Earth Science Teacher award. Currently, Dr. Heckert is a Fulbright U.S. Scholar at the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeoscience at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The recipient of the Provost’s award for Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity is Joseph Bathanti.
Bathanti is a Professor of English and the McFarlane Family Distinguished Professor in Interdisciplinary Education at the Watauga Residential College. The author of 17 books, Bathanti is the 7th North Carolina poet laureate and winner of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina’s highest civilian honor for service to the state. Bathanti has been awarded the North Carolina Award for Literature; the Carolina Novel Award; the North Carolina Poetry Society Prize; the Oscar Arnold Young Award given annually by The Poetry Council of North Carolina for the best book of poetry; the Roanoke Chowan Award in 2010 and 2014, given annually for the best book of poetry by a North Carolinian; the Rita Dove Poetry Award; the Linda Flowers Prize from the North Carolina Humanities Council; and two North Carolina Arts Council Fellowships in Literature, among others. Bathanti, co-founder of the Charles George VA Medical Center’s Creative Writing Program (in Asheville), has a long standing relationship with veterans' writers groups and has a strong commitment to working with individuals to use writing as a means of navigating trauma and difficult memories. He is a former VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) Volunteer and former Chair of the North Carolina Writers’ Network Prison Project. He has devoted hundreds of hours to leading workshops in prisons, homeless shelters, domestic abuse shelters, and nursing homes to empower people by teaching them how to tell their stories.
To learn more about the research and scholarship of Dr. Andy Heckert and Joseph Bathanti, please save the date to hear them speak at the award ceremony of the third annual Research & Creative Activity at Appalachian event on September 17, 2021.
Ece Karatan
Vice Provost for Research
* The Chancellor's and Provost's Awards for Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity honor faculty members for superior achievement in their fields. Recipients are associate or full professors who have been at Appalachian State University at least three years. Recipients are either nominated by faculty, chairs, deans, and/or self-nominated, and are chosen by a committee of faculty members. Two awards are given in this category per year.