2020 Promotion and Tenure Recognition
The achievement of tenure and/or promotion represents the culmination of years of work and excellence and welcomes recipients into a community of privilege and responsibility.
To recognize this accomplishment, the Mary and Jeff Bell Library and the Office of the Provost invite recently tenured and/or promoted faculty to select a book to be added to the library collection that has inspired or encouraged them in their professional journey.
Each book receives a bookplate with the faculty member's name, rank, and year of achievement and is then added to the collection, serving as an enduring tribute to that faculty member's significant contributions and lasting legacy made at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.
College of Business
Mohan Rao
Decision Sciences
Promotion
Professor
Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution by Michael Hammer and James A. Champy
Reengineering the Corporation is a revolutionary book by Hammer and Champy. Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking of processes to bring about dramatic improvements in performance. It is the foundation of ERP systems. Coming from an engineering process improvement background, this book made me sit up and read cover to cover.
Katherine Smith
Marketing
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
Mere Christianity greatly impacted me by changing my perspective on life. The author discusses human experiences with wise insights, thus, stimulating deeper thinking. He is gifted in creating a conversation between himself and the reader while addressing important issues. I have read it more than once.
College of Education and Human Development
Toyin D. Ajisafe
Kinesiology
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Conversations with Myself by Nelson Mandela
The book tells the story of incredible adversity, perseverance, and triumph. Nelson Mandela’s selfless fight for equality reminds me to strive to never miscarry justice and ensure that each student who walks into my classroom feels important and worthy of my time and efforts.
Faye Bruun
Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences
Promotion
Professor
Math Curse by Jon Scieszka
Math Curse, a children's picture book, tells the story of a teacher, Mrs. Fibonacci, who says, “You can think of almost everything as a math problem.” Her student is convinced the teacher has put a “math curse” on her. The book started my interest in teaching mathematics through children’s literature.
Liana Davis
Kinesiology
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
I read this book as a doctoral student and will remember it for the rest of my life. It gives incredible insight into how the processed food industry is driving the obesity epidemic in the USA and beyond. I have seriously considered making it a required reading for my students.
Carmen Tejeda-Delgado
Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences
Promotion
Professor
Burro Genius by Victor Villaseñor
This book helps us understand that enslaving people doesn't only mean bringing them over in chains from Africa - there was a concerted method to convincing them that they were inferior, not evolved, subhuman, and then when the shackles were removed (so they could go to work), they remained enslaved and shackled inside of their minds for hundreds of years. And this system of teaching was fine with most Anglo teachers, because in the act of convincing us, los Mexicanos and Blacks, we were subhuman, they'd also convinced themselves that they were superior!
Corinne Valadez
Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences
Promotion
Professor
College of Liberal Arts
Leticia Bajuyo
Art
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Agnes Denes by Jill Hartz
Kelly Bezio
English
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America by Saidiya V. Hartman
This book teaches what every American needs to know about how racial inequities came to be embedded in United States culture and politics. It warns us to beware the entanglements of pleasure and power, which continue to dominate and oppress people of color well into the twenty-first century.
Robin Carstensen
English
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
Another extraordinary gift from Jeanette Winterson, whose novels and essays have been a steady, central blaze in my hearth for years. With humor and lyric incision, she recounts her life from a budding writer and lesbian adopted into fanatical evangelism in a mill-town near Manchester, England to an Oxford graduate and award-winning, beloved writer. Her brave, personal, feminist lens offers fascinating conversation into the prominent, intersecting issues of culture, history, and politics that inextricably connect us. Exquisite discussions of literature and libraries, mental health, and the nurturing of one another, love, her quintessential theme, which binds us all.
Kevin Concannon
English
Tenure and promotion
Professor
The Line of the Sun by Judith Ortiz Cofer
I was given this book near the end of my graduate studies, and I was immediately engaged by its use of literary history and by its representation of everyday magic to describe the challenges faced by the dispossessed or excluded. I keep returning to this novel many years later, drawn to its hope and humor, and by the realization that no matter how much I want the challenges described in the novel to end differently, there is not yet enough magic in the world for that to happen.
Susan de Ghizé
Music
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Days of Revolution: USA by John Weber
I chose Days of Revolution: USA, written by my dear friend John Weber. Weber’s fictional work is based on current topics, including global warming, corrupt politics, racial injustice, the environment, and veganism. Set in Texas, the cast of diverse heroes (based on his real-life friends, including me!) fight prejudice and evil, all while a colossal hurricane makes landfall.
Jose Flores
Music
Promotion
Professor
Basics: 300 Exercises and Practice Routines for the Violin by Simon Fischer
I love this book because it compiles centuries of tradition in violin pedagogy. Simon Fisher explains: “[Many of these exercises] have been used widely for decades, and in some cases for centuries.” It is a great resource when it comes to violin teaching and string pedagogy in general.
Rosa Lazaro
Theater
Promotion
Professor
The Costume Technician's Handbook by Rosemary Ingham and Liz Covey
Rosemary Ingham has been a pioneer in establishing the guidelines of theatrical costuming. She has written several books and her guidelines are the bases to which most artisans start their careers and they are guidelines we use in teaching the next generation. This book was my guide and now serves my students as they transform into Theatrical Costume Artists.
Michelle Maresh-Fuehrer
Communication
Promotion
Professor
Five Little Bunnies (First Little Golden Book Series) by Linda Hayward, Ruth Sanderson
The books that I read with my parents during my childhood have the most significance. With these books, I learned to read and write creatively, which forged a path to a successful career. My favorite childhood book, Five Little Bunnies, is about embracing our unique characteristics--a message I still appreciate.
Beth Rauhaus
Public Administration
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Emotional Labor: Putting the Service in Public Service by Mary E. Guy, Meredith Newman, and Sharon Mastracci
I read this book my first semester of my PhD program and it solidified my interest in public administration. The book highlights personal accounts of public servants using emotional labor. The text motivated me to explore the use of emotional labor in the public sector and examine gender differences in emotional labor.
Claudia Rueda
History
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Dan Sipes
Music
Promotion
Professor
Arnold Jacobs: Song and Wind by Brian Frederickson
Arnold Jacobs was my tuba teacher when I went to college in Chicago. He was both the most renowned tuba performer and teacher of the 20th century and has inspired multiple generations of brass players.
Michael Sollitto
Communication
Tenure and Promotion
Associate Professor
Organizational Socialization: Joining and Leaving Organizations by M. W. Kramer
Michael Kramer, the book’s author, is a major academic and personal influence of mine and the topic of organizational assimilation is the reason I became interested in studying organizational communication. Therefore, this book about organizational assimilation is special to me because it helped make me the scholar I am today.
College of Science and Engineering
Hussain Abdullah
Chemistry
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Jeremy Conkle
Environmental Science
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Celil Ekici
Mathematics & Statistics
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Analysis, Synthesis, and Perception of Musical Sounds: The Sound of Music by James Beauchamp
Mathematical modeling of sound is a common practice across disciplines of acoustics, music, engineering, and signal processing. Modeling of sound involves sine waves, Fourier analysis, harmonic, spectral analysis, and synthesis. This book exemplifies my orientation as a mathematics educator studying and teaching mathematical modeling for applied mathematics education across disciplines.
Luis Garcia Carrillo
Engineering
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“C’est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante.” The things and people we lose the most time with are the most important... spending this time with them makes them important.
Isaac Kim
Engineering
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Surface Plasmons on Smooth and Rough Surfaces and on Gratings by Heinz Raether
This book has served as a cornerstone when I started my doctoral study. Ever since, I have come to work in the interdisciplinary studies based on nanophotonics, optical diagnostics, and micro/nano fluidics and heat transport. This book has provided insights to understand the fundamentals of the nanophotonics, with which I can diversify my research interests.
Scott King
Computer Science
Promotion
Professor
The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas
Brandi Reese
Life Sciences
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Baas Becking's: Geobiology: Or Introduction to Environmental Science by L. G. M. Baas Becking
Baas-Becking's statement herein that "everything is everywhere, but the environment selects" has formed the basis of microbial community ecology. This simple yet profound tenet has led me to explore some of the most extreme environments on Earth to unravel how life persists here and on other celestial bodies.
Aubrey Rhoden
Mathematics & Statistics
Promotion
Professional Associate Professor
Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics by John Derbyshire
Bernhard Riemann was one of the greatest mathematicians in history. The Riemann Hypothesis is still one of the greatest unsolved problems with a one-million-dollar prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute for anyone that solves it. This is an excellent book that contains both history and math, so it is accessible to readers without a strong math background.
Jian Sheng
Engineering
Tenure and promotion
Professor
Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings by Abolqasem Ferdowsi
Being a Chinese born Chinese-American with a family of diverse ethnic and cultural background living, working and thriving in a great nation, this book on ancient Persian history not only represents the family but also symbolize the wish to promote the societal understanding, tolerance and respects to the diverse cultures and races.
Jeffrey Turner
Life Sciences
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
The Biology of Vibrios editors Fabiano L. Thompson, Brian Austin, and Jean Swings
I have always been fascinated by the dual life strategy of vibrios: environmental microbes and human pathogens. The Biology of Vibrios is a quintessential who’s who of the genus’ most famous and infamous species; It is an excellent reference for students who seek to learn more about the genus.
Michael Wetz
Life Sciences, Harte Research Institute
Promotion
Professor
With everything going on around us, this book offers a simple, straightforward message for how we should treat all of our fellow human beings, no matter how different they are from each of us. There are many books that have had an influence on my life, especially the shark books that my parents bought me when I was little that stimulated my interest in marine biology. But this book has given me perspective on how I should approach my role as a son, father, husband and co-worker.
Kim Withers
Life Sciences
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Molt in Neotropical Birds: Life History and Ageing Criteria by Erik I. Johnson and Jared D. Wolfe
I chose this book because of the importance of understanding molt patterns in birds. Molt is a very important aspect of the life history of birds because it represents a significant energetic cost. Molt strategies vary among species with regard to timing, duration, seasonality, extent, and pattern. These aspects of molt make it useful to ornithologists because once described and defined, these patterns can be used to accurately age birds. The book covers 190 species in the New World Tropics and is based on over 30 years of data.
Hua Zhang
Engineering
Tenure and promotion
Associate Professor
Oil Panic and the Global Crisis: Predictions and Myths by Steven M. Gorelick
This book presents Professor Gorelick’s insightful analysis of the behaviors and interactions of complex systems within a context of science, history, and economics. I am deeply grateful for his mentorship, support, and encouragement.
University College
Chelsie Hawkinson
Undergraduate Studies
Promotion
Professional Associate Professor
Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen by Alix Kates Shulman
Fifty years before #metoo opened a platform for women to be heard, Shulman unapologetically shared the tragic life of an ex-prom queen, Sasha Davis. Sasha’s memoirs expose the deep and dark realities of unchecked patriarchy. For me, they raised the beginnings of a feminist consciousness.
Eric Luttrell
Undergraduate Studies
Promotion
Professional Associate Professor
The Spiritual Quest: Transcendence in Myth, Religion, and Science by Robert M. Torrance
Are humans really Homo sapiens? What wisdom we possess is always provisional and quickly overwhelmed by the material realities of our lives and minds. In this book, Robert Torrance describes humans, instead, as Animal quaerens, "the questing animal." Our journey toward understanding and transcendence is never complete, but something inside us drives us ever on. This book examines and extols that drive.
Rita Sperry
Undergraduate Studies
Promotion
Professional Senior Professor
Learning Communities: Reforming Undergraduate Education by Barbara Leigh Smith, Roberta Matthews, Faith Gabelnick, and Jean MacGregor
When I was hired as First-Year Seminar Coordinator in 2008, this book helped me understand the scope of the literature on learning communities and appreciate the unique and revolutionary program TAMU-CC offers its first-year students. It also inspired me to pursue work in this area, which led to PhD study and shaped the career I have today.
Wendy Walker
Undergraduate Studies
Promotion
Professional Associate Professor