Beverly Black, School of Social Work

The University of Texas at Arlington and your colleagues in the School of Social Work, along with a myriad of former students, wish to express their appreciation for your many years of dedicated teaching, service, and research. 

You are a legendary social scholar and educator. You were a transformative Program Director for the Master of Social Work and Ph.D. Programs in our school. You were always available to mentor students and faculty and offer an honest opinion. Your career, and especially your mentorship of doctoral students, is held as the ideal. Your well-earned reputation, substantive knowledge, and unswerving dedication to students have hugely lifted our program. It isn't easy to express the professional impact you had on the trajectories of over a hundred doctoral students who graduated and are now themselves teaching a generation of social workers. 

Your scholarship in interpersonal violence sets you out as a pioneer in articulating the perspectives and needs of adolescents experiencing dating violence. Through your scholarly work, you have made substantial contributions to the efficacy and relevance of interventions available for teens today. You are the recipient of numerous awards for your scholarship, including being named a Fellow of the Society for Social Work Research, the Feminist Scholar Award, and the Distinguished Recent Contributions in Social Work Education Award from the Council on Social Work Education. Your substantive expertise was recognized and sought after by the Centers for Disease Control.

UTA and the School of Social Work have been fortunate to receive the knowledge, leadership, and dedication you shared with students and colleagues over the past 16 years. 

With deep gratitude, respect, and affection, you are named Professor Emeritus of The University of Texas at Arlington.

Elisabeth Cawthon, Department of History and Geography

Your colleagues in the College of Liberal Arts and the faculty and members of the faculty, staff, and administration of The University of Texas at Arlington wish to honor and commend you for over three decades of dedicated teaching, research, service, and administration.   

A history instructor of great skill and compassion, you met students where they were, helping them learn content and skills and guiding them in establishing a lifelong interest in learning. You were an inaugural member of the University’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers, a UT System Regents Outstanding Teaching Awardee, and advanced to national consideration as a Carnegie Foundation nominee. Students counted on you as a mentor, referee, and thesis-director par excellence.  

In 2012, you helped establish the Pre-Law Center to help students navigate the process of applying to law school and succeeding there. Today, thousands of students have benefited from your vision. 

As a member of the Dean’s staff and then as Dean, your strength, transparency, and supportiveness as a leader served to build community. Your steady hand guided the College through challenges small and significant, and we are deeply grateful for your wisdom. 

For your lasting impact on your colleagues, dedication to students, and honorable and distinctive service, the University confers upon you the title of Dean Emerita.  

Maureen Courtney, Department of Graduate Nursing

The University of Texas at Arlington and your colleagues in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation (CONHI) are honored to recognize your 43-year career and your impact on students, faculty, and the nurse practitioner (NP) profession. Your most lasting impact on UTA and the College was to bring a clear vision to the role of the NP. Your vision of how NPs could impact the local community led to funding to develop two nurse-managed clinics in medically underserved neighborhoods, which still exist today. You forged a path forward for CONHI to educate thousands of future NPs.  

We appreciate the distinctive nature of your research investigating NP practice, behavioral economics, and patient decision-making and your pioneering work on publishing one of the first articles regarding behavioral economics in nursing. Your work in Design Thinking resulted in the first workshop at a national meeting, helping NPs learn about the innovative design process and patient care.  

Your service to UTA and the profession is truly remarkable. You served on the faculty senate and the President’s Advisory Council under different presidents. Your thoughtful and deliberate reasoning helped shape policy at all levels, and your voice in the professional space helped shape NP policy. You are an inspiration to countless novice nurse practitioners at UTA and beyond. With the utmost gratitude, respect, and admiration, you are named Professor Emeritus of The University of Texas at Arlington.

Joyce Goldberg, Department of History and geography

The faculty, alumni, students, and administration of The University of Texas at Arlington are honored to recognize your thirty-eight years of distinguished service to the education of our students and your lifelong devotion to the principles of our profession.  

Your dedication as a teacher has been recognized by students and colleagues alike. Teaching awards, including the student-chosen Golladay and faculty-chosen Chancellor’s Awards, reflected the extraordinary amount of time and effort you invested in instructing your students how to read and write effectively—the latter aided always by a signature purple-ink pen. Colleagues who overheard snippets of your many student conferences learned a lot about patience, persistence, and caring. 

Your scholarship on nineteenth-century US-Latin American relations earned you the respect of your peers in diplomatic history not only for your own scholarship in The Baltimore Affair, but also as an editor in a key collection of primary source documents used widely in the field. 

For your dedication to your students and to the historical profession, the title of Associate Professor Emerita is hereby conferred upon you. 

Abdolhossein Haji-Sheikh, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering faculty and administration of The University of Texas at Arlington are honored to recognize your enduring scholarship, your contributions to the field of heat transfer, your contributions in the establishment of the education and research mission of our department and your lifelong devotion to the principles of our profession.

Your efforts and contributions over a period of more than fifty years have and continue to place MAE on a pioneering path. Your tireless efforts in the early days of your career laid the foundations on which the thriving education and research program in our department stands today. You, among others, helped establish several new classes, laboratories, a new graduate program and research labs. Your efforts were instrumental in successful ABET accreditation of our undergraduate programs.

You are internationally known and respected scholar in the area of conduction heat transfer. Over the course of your career at UTA, you developed new theoretical methods to analyze conduction heat transfer problems and contributed measurements of significant and interesting heat transfer phenomena. Your textbook on Green’s functions method to solve thermal conduction problems is highly respected worldwide. You received several accolades and recognition throughout your career, including the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award, which is the highest technical award presented in the research field of heat transfer. 

For your exceptional, internationally recognized scholarship, dedication to teaching, commitment to students, and for your service to the University and the heat transfer research community, the title of Professor Emeritus is hereby conferred upon you.

Rod Hissong, Department of Public Affairs and Planning

Your colleagues in the Department of Public Affairs and Planning, other faculty, staff, administration, and students of The University of Texas Arlington honor you for 32 dedicated years of outstanding teaching, service, administration, and research.

Joining UTA in 1988, you became an exemplary teacher - recognized as a charter member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers in 1996. Teaching urban economics and public financial management, your doctoral supervision impact was exemplary. You directed the public affairs doctoral programs for over twenty years and annually averaged two supervised graduates.

Your service and administrative contributions are unparalleled.  You served as Faculty Senate Chair (1996-98) in a challenging administrative period. As Graduate Assembly Chair (2015-17), you oversaw the development of the paper publication dissertation alternative.  As Associate Dean for the School of Urban and Public Affairs (2001-2011), you fostered a remarkable growth in enrollment and faculty.

Your urban economic development and applied research in related Texas city policies, as well as racial equity in our state’s criminal justice processes, have lasting impacts. Few careers demonstrate such remarkable public contributions via research.

It is with the utmost gratitude and respect that you are named Associate Professor Emeritus of the University of Texas at Arlington.

"Max" Qinhong Hu, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

The University of Texas at Arlington and your colleagues in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) are honored to recognize your 15 years of excellence in teaching, research, and service to our students, alumni, and faculty.  

You have excelled as a researcher and educator during this period. Your achievements have been recognized with several distinguished awards, including the UTA Distinguished Record of Research Award and the Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award. You have published over 350 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports and have presented these at international conferences. Your research achievements have also been recognized by major federal grants from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation and other sponsors.   

You supervised fourteen Ph.D. students; eleven of them have already successfully graduated, and many of them have received awards and become faculty themselves. You supervised 40 graduate students on the Master's track and seven postdoctoral scholars and hosted many international visitors.  

We greatly appreciate your outstanding service to the EES Department as graduate advisor for Ph.D. students, chair of the Tenure and Promotion committee, and serving as department representative in the faculty senate. You served the science community as an Editor-in-Chief or associate editor for several international journals.   

With the utmost gratitude, respect, and admiration, you are named Professor Emeritus of The University of Texas at Arlington.

Stephen Maizlish, Department of History and geography

Faculty, students, and alumni in the Department of History, as well as the University of Texas at Arlington community wish to commend you for your forty-two years of outstanding service to the University. 

Your scholarship on the political history of the United States during 1850s has transformed our understanding of the dynamics of that era. Deep research and careful analysis of the Compromise of 1850 revealed how entrenched sectional positions were and that what historians have long referred to as a “national compromise” was anything but. As one imminent reviewer summarized, your work is “an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the origins of the Civil War.”

Your contributions to the Department of History were equally important. We are especially grateful for your service as graduate advisor, for which you achieved recognition at both the university and national level.  

For your keen insights into the political history of the United States, prodigious hard work on behalf of the University, and especially your dedication to the students of the University of Texas at Arlington, we confer upon you the title of Associate Professor Emeritus.

Mary Whiteside, Department of Information Systems & Operations Management

The University of Texas at Arlington and your colleagues in the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management are honored to recognize your 39 years of excellence in teaching, research, and service to our students, alumni, and faculty.  

You are an accomplished teacher who served on over 100 dissertation committees (and chaired or co-chaired 11 dissertations), not as a passive member but as a methodologist who ensured that the research methods employed were appropriate and that the statistical tests conducted were robust.  

You were a true scholar who was intellectually curious and pursued research not because of publications but because you enjoyed doing it. You served as the Information Systems & Operations Management department chair for many years. Under your leadership, the department flourished, and you played an instrumental role in hiring new faculty members and expanding the department's course offerings and programs. You have rendered service of the highest quality, often putting the interests of the institution, your colleagues, and students ahead of your own. You have left an indelible mark on our institution, and your legacy will continue to inspire future generations of academics. With the utmost gratitude, affection, and respect, the faculty of The University of Texas at Arlington grant you the title of Professor Emeritus of The University of Texas at Arlington.

James Williams, Department of Civil Engineering

Your colleagues in the Department of Civil Engineering and members of the faculty, staff, and administration of The University of Texas Arlington wish to honor and commend you in recognition of your 36 years of outstanding service to the University.  

Your commitment to civil engineering students’ success was unmatched. For over 30 years, you served actively as faculty advisor for the UTA student chapters of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and Tau Beta Pi. You made arrangements and traveled annually with 40-50 students to the major ASCE state and national events, including concrete canoe and steel bridge competitions. You made students feel that they were part of the civil engineering community, gave them a sense of camaraderie, and served as an outstanding role model for them.  

Moreover, you did more than any other faculty member in building and maintaining an active and engaged network of civil engineering alumni. You are fondly remembered by hundreds of students who have gained through your activities on their behalf.  

Thus, with deep gratitude, respect, and affection, the University of Texas at Arlington faculty grant you the title of Professor Emeritus of The University of Texas at Arlington.

Robert Young, Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Your colleagues in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and members of the faculty, staff, and administration of The University of Texas Arlington wish to honor and commend you in recognition of your 31 years of outstanding service to the University.

In 1991, you joined UT Arlington as Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Program. You dedicated 14 years to department leadership, including eight years as department chair. During your time at UT Arlington, you mentored a large number of students and faculty, and did so with collegiality, humor, and warmth. While maintaining a strong dedication to service and teaching, your research added to the sociological literature in the areas of social psychology, symbolic interactionism, and social deviance and control. Your commitment to the profession of sociology and to the UTA Sociology program and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, its students, faculty, and staff was inspiring. You have left your mark, and we thank you. It is with the upmost gratitude, respect, and admiration that you are named Professor Emeritus of The University of Texas at Arlington.