At Thursday's faculty meeting, Provost Steve Goldstein '78 announced that Prof. Robin Feuer Miller (GRALL) has been awarded a prestigious Guggenheim fellowship to work on a book project. Dean of Arts and Sciences Susan Birren also named the winners of several teaching awards, as well as the five Student Achievement Awards given to current sophomores with impressive academic and extracurricular accomplishments.

According to a BrandeisNOW press release, Miller is one of 175 academics awarded a 2013 Guggenheim fellowship out of 3,000 applicants.

Her project will be about two 19th-century Russian novelists, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy, both of whom she has written books about previously.

"I was deeply honored that my proposal ... garnered enough support to result in my becoming a Guggenheim Fellow," she said in an interview with the Justice. "I think what is most special to me is to receive an award that is shared by so many creative artists in fields like photography, poetry and fiction writing. It seems to me that the Guggenheim Foundation strives to honor creativity in a wide variety of fields. In our day and age that is especially affirming to the values which I most cherish."

"I am so excited about tackling this project and by the Guggenheim Foundation's support of it-I can't wait to start," said Miller, according to the press release.

Miller will be a Visiting Fellow at St. Edmund Hall next year at the University of Oxford, according to the press release.

Teaching Awards

Also at Thursday's faculty meeting, Birren announced the four 2013 winners of the teaching and mentoring awards for the School of Arts and Sciences.

Prof. Don Katz (PSYC) won the Lerman-Nebauer '69 Prize for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring.

"My Brandeis students are the ones who inspire me to perform, ... which is enough of a 'gift' for me (my interactions with the Lerman Neubauer fellows, who carry the same name as my award, have been particularly inspiring)," he wrote in an email to the Justice.

"The fact that they then turn around and give me ANOTHER gift-the gift of good evaluations-makes me feel ... lucky and well loved."

Prof. Sara Shostak (SOC) was awarded the Michael L. Walzer '56 Award for Teaching.

"I was absolutely thrilled to receive the Michael L. Walzer '56 Award for Teaching," said Shostak in an email to the Justice. "I love teaching at Brandeis.  I am inspired by the students in my classes, and those with whom I've worked on independent research projects. So, receiving an award based on student nominations is deeply meaningful to me."

The third teaching prize, the Louis Dembitz Brandeis Prize for Excellence in Teaching, was awarded to Prof. James Morris (BIOL). "I am very grateful to receive this award," said Morris in an email to the Justice. "My sincere thanks goes to all of the students I have taught over the years, as well as to my own teachers. Both have provided me with inspiration and guidance in and out of the classroom."

Prof. ChaeRan Yoo Freeze (NEJS) received the Dean's Mentoring Award for Outstanding Mentoring of Students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. According to Birren, one of Freeze's students said that "by mentoring others, she has trained many of us to be mentors ourselves."

In addition, Heller School for Social Policy and Management Dean Lisa Lynch presented the Heller School teaching, mentoring and staff awards, which went to, respectively, Prof. Carole Carlson (Heller), Prof. Tatjana Meschede (Heller) and Norma DeMattos, program administrator for both the MBA and MPP programs.

"I feel very honored and deeply touched by the comments students wrote about my work with them," said Meschede in an email to the Justice.  As I often say, my work with students is one of the most gratifying job I can think of, watching them learn and grow right in front of my eyes, taking in what I can offer and make it their own, and at the same time myself challenged to learn and grow together with them."

Prof. Laurie Lesser also won a teaching award from the Rabb School of Continuing Studies.

Brandeis Achievement Awards

Also at Thursday's faculty meeting Birren announced the winners of the Brandeis Achievement Awards, an annual scholarship prize given to "currently enrolled sophomores who have distinguished themselves by their outstanding scholarship and academic achievements at Brandeis."

The students awarded were Gloria Cadder, Paul Kim, Iosefa Percival, Alva Stux and Dana Trismen, all '15.

Cadder, who is majoring in English, Creative Writing and Politics and minoring in Legal Studies and Women's and Gender Studies, is the editor of the Brandeis Law Journal and a member of the Mock Trial Association.

"I am very honored to be a recipient of this award and to be considered part of such a fantastic group of students," said Cadder in an email to the Justice.

Kim, who is double majoring in Chemistry and Biology, works in a chemistry lab, rows on the crew team and is a co-founder of Education for Students by Students.

"I definitely feel very blessed and honored to have been chosen," said Kim. "The whole experience has been really humbling, and if anything having now won the award, I feel motivated to work even harder now."

Percival studies Environmental Studies and Economics, is president of the Brandeis Surfing Club, and works at the technology help desk. His recommenders said that he has "all the characteristics of a leader, he's personable, inquisitive, intelligent, responsive, empathetic, and wants to make a difference in the world."

Stux, an Anthropology major and Legal Studies minor, is part of the Middle East Music Ensemble and a member of SCRAM.

One of her faculty recommenders called her "one of the most rewarding students I have worked with over my 17 years of teaching at Brandeis."

Trismen, a triple major in English, Creative Writing and Psychology, is an editor of both the Brandeis Hoot and Where the Children Play. Her faculty recommender said that she was "a leader, place her in a small room and she will organize it and make it better."

None of the award recipients besides Cadder and Kim could be reached for comment by press time.

-Tate Herbert contributed reporting