They are Byran D. Byers, outstanding faculty service; Mathew D. Fisher, outstanding faculty academic adviser; Thad J. Godish, outstanding research award; Jatinder N.D. Gupta, outstanding faculty award; James E. Hendricks, outstanding administrative service; James A. Shasky, outstanding creative endeavor; and Marcy Hamby Towns, outstanding junior faculty.

The outstanding educators, selected by their peers, receive a cash award from the Ball State University Foundation as well as a plaque provided by the Alumni Association.

Byers has served as senior adviser, internship director, representative to the Honors College and Alpha Phi Sigma Honor Society sponsor. Last year he planned a criminal justice career fair, potentially benefiting more than 500 majors. He has been a member of the university's institutional review board since 1996 and has served as chairperson of the Honors Subcommittee.

He has also devoted time to the Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program and to the Advisory board on hate crimes for the Indiana Civil Rights Commitssion. A year ago Byers became president of the Midwestern Criminal Justice Association. In addition, he has served as a reviewer for scholarly publications and was an associate editor of the national journal "Teaching Sociology." Frequently he is asked to speak on his current research, anti-Amish hate crime.

As faculty adviser and director of undergraduate programs in English, Fisher is the first point of contact for prospective English majors at Cardinal Previews and perhaps the last at alumni meetings he has organized. He has encouraged students to submit papers to undergraduate research conferences and arranged transportation hear speakers in Indianapolis and Cincinnati. He formed an English club that arranges discussion groups and screenings of films. And as service to the community, he and department students are committed to Habitat for Humanity projects.

Over the past 24 years, Godish has become widely recognized as a researcher of indoor air quality, a reputation gained through more than 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and proceedings of international conferences. He has published three books: "Air Quality," currtently in its third edition; "Indoor Pollution Control"; and "Sick Buildings: Definition, Diagnosis and Mitigation. A fourth book, "Indoor Environmental Quality" will be published in October. International recognition has resulted in the awarding of a visiting scientist appointment in Australia in 1992 and at Harvard University School of Public Healthj in 1993. His research has been funded by numerous grants, most notably a $263,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In 15 years at Ball State Gupta has conducted course assessments for programs in Information Systems and Operations Management, worked on the creation of a computer applications minor for the Information Systems major, and developed and taught the MBA core course in Information Systems and the Operations Strategy course via interactive television. Four times he has received the Dean's Teaching Award.

A former recipient of the university's Outstanding Research Award, Gupta has published numerous papers in leading journals and also served on the editorial boards of at least six international journals. His activities have resulted in the visits of several international visiting scholars to Ball State. He helped develop Ball State's exchange program with the leading academic institution in Monterey, Mexico.

Gupta chaired the Committee for the International Conference of the Production and Operations Management Society in New Delhi last year. He has been proceedings editor for the Association for Information Systems and president of the Midwest Decision Sciences Institute. In 1997, the institute elected him a fellow, an honor bestowed on only two persons per year.

Hendricks was hired in 1981 to establish the first internship program for the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology. By forging relationships with more than 200 criminal justice agencies, he has made it possible for students to not only benefit from the capstone experience but also secure employment at all levels of government.

Under his leadership, department faculty unanimously adopted student-oriented goals. They routinely incorporate technology in the classroom, include multicultural issues in each course offering and promote ethical conduct. Over a 19-year span, he has published 37 articles and seven books, with six articles and two books published since he became chair. Currently he is president of the Delaware County Police Merit Commission and for three years served as chief deputy of the Delaware County Police.

Shasky came to Ball State in 1997 with a wealth of experience in Hollywood and New York City, including five Emmy Awards and seven other nominations. He has been able to secure entry-level positions for Ball State students in Hollywood. Shasky teaches courses in video production, directing for television and the television documentary. He is adviser of "Connections," the WIPB-TV student news and entertainment weekly show, and Cardinal Filmworks, the organization dedicated to making student films.

His nominators chose to illustrate his craftsmanship in the production or a recent promotional piece for the Muncie Symphony Orchestra.

In five years at Ball State, Towns has demonstrated outstanding performance as classroom and laboratory teacher, mentor and scholar. As teacher, her success with the capstone physical chemistry courses is externally validated by the scores of students of the ETS Major Field Examination. As researcher, she has involved at least six undergraduate students as co-investigators and won four Honors College Fellow proposals. Towns has been author or co-author of six published refereed papers with three more accepted and she has presented 24 research papers with colleagues. The author or co-author of nine external grant proposals, she is the principal investigator on a major instrument grant of $46,000 from the National Science Foundation. She serves on the American Chemical Society Examination Committee and its Chemical Education Research Committee. She has organized symposia on cooperative learning as well as technology and teaching and served on the awards committee for the Chemistry Honorary for Women.

By Tony Barker, Communications Manager