Faculty Appreciation Awards Banquet

Three University of Arkansas professors — Carleton Holt, Jamie Hestekin and Vikas Anand — were named Teachers of the Year during the 12th annual Faculty Appreciation Banquet on March 8 at the Janelle Y. Hembree Alumni House. The banquet was planned by the Associated Student Government and the Residents' Interhall Congress.

During the dinner, Chancellor G. David Gearhart, addressed the audience followed by the former recipient of the Teacher of the Year, Robert Stapp, who currently serves as an associate professor of economics in the Sam M. Walton College of Business.

2011 Teachers of the Year

Carleton Holt

Holt currently serves as associate professor of educational leadership in the College of Education and Health Professions. He brings an extensive background of leadership in the field of education to the University of Arkansas.

He has served as a band director, coach, and school administrator in the public schools in Iowa and South Dakota for over 30 years. Holt's doctoral dissertation was titled "Factors Affecting the Outcomes of School Bond Elections in South Dakota." Holt has had articles on this subject published by the Educational Research Quarterly and School Business Affairs. In addition, he is the author of a textbook for educational leaders entitled School Bond Success: A Strategy for Building America's Schools, second edition, available from the Scarecrow Publishing Company.

In 1999, Holt received the first annual Alumni Leadership Award from the School of Education at the University of South Dakota in recognition of outstanding leadership in his profession and his contribution to higher education. His research interests include the successful marketing of school bond issues and millages to overcome the national problem of aging school facilities Student learning preferences and school health programs to identify factors that may support improved student academic performance in K-12 schools. Carleton Holt was nominated by his students Dennis Toliver, Tina Antley, Lana Shuck and Ginni McDonald.

Jamie Hestekin

Hestekin currently serves as an assistant professor of chemical engineering in the College of Engineering. Research Hestekin conducts can be broken up into two areas. The first area focuses on charged separations, mainly using wafer enhanced electrodeionization, and applications of these charged separations. This has been applied to separation of ions from grape juices, biofuel cell ion removal, and the modeling and selective separation of organic acids from fermentations. The second area focuses on the extraction of oils and carbohydrates from algae and their ultimate production into both biodiesel and butanol. Student projects in this area include enhancement of butyric acid fermentation with electrodeionization for continuous product separation, direct conversion of algae into butanol, the production of biodiesel from lipids using continuous supercritical methanol transesterification, and the extraction of carbohydrates and lipids from algae using mechanical disruption coupled with sonification.

Hestekin's work has lead to six granted U.S. patents, eight U.S. and world patent applications, and 30 technical publications and presentations. He is actively involved in the American Institute of Chemical Engineering and the North American Membrane Society. He recently chaired the 2006 NAMS meeting in Chicago, which brought together over 430 of the top membrane scientists in the world. Hestekin was nominated by his student Danielle Frechette.

Vikas Anand

Anand currently serves as an associate professor of management in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. He received his doctorate from Arizona State University, and an Master of Business Administration in international business from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. He also holds a bachelor's degree in engineering and a master's degree in physics. His major areas of research include corruption and ethics in organizations, knowledge management in organizations, and trends in the globalization of business practices such as outsourcing.

He has published and presented his work on business ethics and knowledge management in several research and practitioner outlets such as the Academy of Management Review, Research in Organizational Behavior, and Academy of Management Executive. Prior to his academic career, he was a manager in two large multinational corporations and worked extensively on marketing and strategic planning positions in various parts of Africa and Asia. He has taught at the undergraduate, master's and doctoral levels and has given lectures on aspects of international business in several countries around the world. His research has included working with several large multinational corporations with respect to business process outsourcing and inter-cultural issues. He was the recipient of the Walton College of Business Award in 2007, and the University of Arkansas Teaching Excellence Award in 2008, and currently serves as the Management Department's Doctoral Program Coordinator.

Outstanding Faculty Nominees:

• Michael Loos
• Alexandra Pappas
• Christian Goering
• Lothar Schafer
• Wen-Juo Lo
• Ed Mink
• Judy Brittenum
• Ernest Heymsfield
• Justin Nolan
• Alessandro Brogi
• Cathy Wissehr
• Denise Mounts
• Douglas Rhoads
• Freddie Bowles
• Glenda House
• John Pijanowski
• Kathleen Condray
• Kirk Grimmelsman
• Mark Arnold
• Michael Miller
• Ronald Rardin
• Ronna Turner
• Sean Mulvenon
• William Etges
• William McComas