BOCA RATON, FL (April 16, 2007) – Florida Atlantic University President Frank T. Brogan and Provost John Pritchett will host the University’s 38th annual Honors Convocation on Tuesday, April 17 at 5 p.m. at the University Theater, in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, on FAU’s Boca Raton campus, 777 Glades Road.
The annual ceremony recognizes the University’s most outstanding students and faculty. (A full list of honorees is below.)
Students to be honored include eight university scholars, representing each of FAU’s colleges; the Phi Kappa Phi scholars; the Stan and Renee Wimberly Scholar; and the Student Academic Athletes of the Year.
A new award will be given at this year’s convocation, the Nancy Blosser Service Award. It’s named in honor of Board of Trustee member Nancy Blosser, who has a long record of rendering volunteer service to the University. It will be given to Hank Stern, who was instrumental in helping to launch the Commercial Music Program.
Faculty honors include the presentation of the FAU National Alumni Association’s Degree of Difference Award, University Researchers of the Year awards, teaching and advising awards, and the Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award, which is determined by FAU students. The recipient of this award, Dr. Kathryn Keller of the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, will present the keynote address.
For more information on the Honors Convocation, call 561-297-0884.
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2007 Florida Atlantic University Honors Convocation Awardees
UNIVERSITY SCHOLARS
College of Architecture, Urban and Public Affairs Deborah Bruce
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters Kristina Countryman
Barry Kaye College of Business Deborah Donaldson
College of Education Andrea Schlessel
College of Engineering and Computer Science Jaime Fraser
Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College Laura Owens
Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing Joshua Phillips
Charles E. Schmidt College of Science Natalia Acosta
DISTINGUISHED STUDENT AWARD
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters Rhonda Graves
PHI KAPPA PHI SCHOLAR
Charles E. Schmidt College of Science Lorraine Fuhrman
STUDENT ACADEMIC ATHLETES OF THE YEAR
Megan Coyne and Ryan Kinsley
THE UNIVERSITY CLUB SCHOLAR
College of Engineering and Computer Science Christopher Vinci
THE STAN AND RENEE WIMBERLY SCHOLAR
Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College Eric Seymour
NANCY BLOSSER SERVICE AWARD
Henry Stern
UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS OF THE YEAR AWARDS
Jie Wu Professor of the Year – Sponsored/Project Oriented, Engineering and Computer Science
Allan Barsky Professor of the Year – Creative/ Scholarly, Social Work
Yoshimi Shibata Associate Professor of the Year – Sponsored/Project Oriented, Biomedical Sciences
Mihaela Cardei Assistant Professor of the Year – Sponsored/Project Oriented, Engineering and Computer Science
UNIVERSITY TEACHING AND ADVISING AWARDS 2006-07
Undergraduate Teaching Awards
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters Gina Carreno
Barry Kaye College of Business Patrick Bernet
Barry Kaye College of Business Eric Chiang
College of Education Joseph Furner
College of Education Mary Lou Duffy
Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing Marguerite Purnel
College of Engineering & Computer Science Khaled Sobhan
College of Engineering & Computer Science Martin Solomon
Undergraduate Advising Awards
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters Prisca Augustyn
College of Education Marsha Lynch Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College Terje Hoim
THE DISTINGUISHED TEACHER OF THE YEAR
Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing Kathryn Keller
Dr. Kathryn Keller
Kathryn Keller obtained her PhD in Nursing from the University of Miami in 1997. Her first position as a registered Nurse was in the Emergency Department at Jackson Memorial Hospital (JMH) in Miami. Following that experience, she worked in the Surgical ICU at Grady Memorial in Atlanta and then back to JMH to the Coronary Intensive Care Unit where she found her niche. This was the beginning of her interest in electrocardiographic nursing concepts. Eventually she went back to school and obtained her Masters degree in Nursing as a clinical specialist in critical care. Her last position at JMH was as an instructor in the school of nursing.
Around this time she met her future husband on a blind date, and before she knew it, she was married and living in Pittsburgh. Here she taught acute care nursing at Shadyside Hospital School of Nursing. Her first two children were born there, 15 months apart. The next stop was New Mexico were she worked as a critical care nurse specialist. Finally, she and her family made it back to Miami. There she accepted a critical care educator position and remained at Mercy Hospital for almost 10 years where she co-coordinated Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) courses, taught 12-lead EKG and arrhythmia interpretation courses, along with Open Heart Recovery and Critical Care courses. During this time she went back for the Ph.D. and had her third child.
Keller's primary research interest is in arrhythmia nursing knowledge. Her doctoral research was the "Development of an Instrument to Assess Critical Care Nurses' Arrhythmia Knowledge." She is presently working to refine this instrument. Additionally, she often publishes in the Cardiology Casebook section of the American Journal of Critical Care along with her mentor Dr. Louis Lemberg. She was certified in critical care nursing (CCRN) for over 20 years and remains current in ACLS. She loves to teach ACLS review and EKG nursing concepts.
Keller's life off campus revolves around her three children, Michael, Kristine and Jeffery and husband, Fernando.
