Alumni Association honors five with 1994 Faculty Awards

At the April 21 campus banquet, faculty members were recognized for "significant contributions to the welfare of humankind and the stature of Mississippi State University." Awards were presented for classroom teaching, research and service.

Each received $1,000 and a commemorative plaque. Recipients were George Buehler, Hank Flick, E. Stanly Godbold Jr., Rachel McCann, and David L. Whitfield.

Since the program's inception in 1964, 131 faculty members have been honored. This year's recipients and their awards include:

• George Buehler, Upper Level (junior and senior) Teaching Award. The foreign languages professor, a specialist in German, is in his 20th year as a member of the faculty. Buehler holds degrees from Kent State and Indiana universities. He is a member of the Faculty Council and Student Affairs Committee and was chief architect of the university's bachelor's degree program in foreign languages and international trade.
• Hank Flick, Service Award. An associate professor of communication, he also is known for his work as public address announcer for varsity football, basketball and track events. He also is a special assistant to the director of athletics. Flick joined the faculty in 1971. He holds degrees from Memphis State and Southern Illinois universities. He lectures widely and leads numerous workshops across the state and region.
• Stanly Godbold, Graduate Level Teaching Award. The history professor joined the faculty in 1977 and holds degrees from Duke and Southern Methodist universities. He is an expert in the areas of the Old South, New South and American religion, among others. Godbold has written three books, one of which won the 1991 Thomas Wolfe Literary Award. Others were nominated for various distinctions. He is conducting research for a biography of former president Jimmy Carter.
• Rachel McCann, Lower Level (freshman and sophomore) Teaching Award.
• An assistant professor of architecture since 1988, McCann holds degrees from Mississippi State and the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is an editor of Arris, the journal of the Southeastern Society of Architectural Historians. McCann has led design or restoration projects in Mississippi and Georgia and is this year's commencement speaker for the University of Arkansas School of Architecture.
• David Whitfield, Research Award. The William L. Giles Distinguished Professor of aerospace engineering has established an international reputation for research in computational fluid dynamics and has brought worldwide recognition to Mississippi State. Whitfield joined the faculty in 1981. He holds degrees from Oklahoma State University and the University of Tennessee. He was one of the original principals in the successful 1989 proposal to the National Science Foundation that led to the Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation, one of only 18 such centers in the United States.

The recipients are chosen by a committee of faculty, students, and alumni.