UNM Alumni Association Announces 2012 Award Winners

The UNM Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion has announced the win­ners of its pres­ti­gious James F. Zim­mer­man, Bernard S. Rodey, Erna S. Fer­gus­son and Fac­ulty Awards. The win­ners will be hon­ored at the Alumni Association’s “Cel­e­brate Our Own” awards din­ner on Thurs­day, Feb. 16 at 6 p.m. at the Hotel Albu­querque. All are invited to attend. Please RSVP to the Alumni Rela­tions Office (505–277-5808) by Fri­day, Feb. 10. The cost is $40 per person.

“The win­ners of the 2012 awards are out­stand­ing in every way,” says Karen Abra­ham, asso­ciate vice pres­i­dent, UNM Alumni Rela­tions Office. “These spe­cial awards cel­e­brate those peo­ple who have made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to honor the uni­ver­sity and the state; whose lead­er­ship efforts have made a dif­fer­ence to the field of edu­ca­tion; who have proven dis­tin­guished ser­vice to the uni­ver­sity; and who have shown out­stand­ing teach­ing service.”

2012 Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion Award Winners

James F. Zim­mer­man Award
David Allen Hovda, direc­tor, UCLA Brain Injury Research Cen­ter (’79 BS, ’83 MS, ’85 Ph.D.)
Hovda’s research in under­stand­ing the cel­lu­lar patho­phys­i­ol­ogy of brain injury helped UCLA gain recog­ni­tion as a “Cen­ter of Excel­lence” by the National Insti­tute of Health. Dr Hovda—who is the chair for the Brain Injury and Neu­rovas­cu­lar Patholo­gies study sec­tion for the National Insti­tute for Neu­ro­log­i­cal Dis­ease and Stroke, and pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tional Neu­ro­trauma Society—has received many awards for his research, includ­ing the Ben­jamin Franklin Haught Memo­r­ial Award.

Bernard S. Rodey Award
Michael J. Glen­non, past pres­i­dent, Cen­tral New Mex­ico Com­mu­nity Col­lege (’71 BBA, ’74 MBA)
With more than 30 years of expe­ri­ence in higher edu­ca­tion, Glen­non has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to Albuquerque’s learn­ing com­mu­nity. He was pres­i­dent of Cen­tral New Mex­ico Com­mu­nity Col­lege, the state’s largest and most com­pre­hen­sive com­mu­nity col­lege, and also leant his exper­tise in edu­ca­tion and finance to the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico, the Com­mis­sion of Higher Edu­ca­tion, and the New Mex­ico Asso­ci­a­tion of Com­mu­nity Col­leges. In 2001, he was given the Zia Award from the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion in recog­ni­tion of his com­mu­nity service.

Erna S. Fer­gus­son Award
Marty Wil­son, past exec­u­tive direc­tor, Golden Apple Foun­da­tion of New Mex­ico (’71 BAED, ’78 MA, ’93 EDSP)
When it comes to edu­ca­tion, Wil­son is the pick of the bunch: she led the Golden Apple Foun­da­tion of New Mex­ico, where she devel­oped a teacher awards pro­gram, sum­mer insti­tute and acad­emy. Prior to that, she taught at Albu­querque Pub­lic Schools, where she was cho­sen as “Out­stand­ing Teacher” twice, and she later devel­oped and revised the K-12 APS cur­ricu­lum when she became the coor­di­na­tor of Cur­ricu­lum Out­reach for APS. She has been a con­tin­u­ous sup­porter of UNM and is past pres­i­dent of the UNM Alumni Association.

Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion Fac­ulty Teach­ing Award
Kath­leen Wash­burn, assis­tant pro­fes­sor, Eng­lish, Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico
Wash­burn com­pleted her Ph.D. in Eng­lish at UCLA, and came to UNM to teach stu­dents about Native Amer­i­can lit­er­a­tures of the 19th and 20th cen­turies. With sev­eral pub­li­ca­tions such as “Writ­ing the Indige­nous West” for A Com­pan­ion to the Lit­er­a­ture and Cul­ture of the Amer­i­can West under her belt, Dr. Wash­burn is always on the look­out for ways she can sup­port and ele­vate her stu­dents; she received the UCLA Chancellor’s Ser­vice Award in 2008 for work­ing to recruit non­tra­di­tional stu­dents to the university.

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion, visit UNM Alumni or con­tact Roberta Ricci at 505–277-9085 or email, abqricci@unm.edu.

Media Con­tact: Lexi Petro­nis (505) 277‑4915; email: lexip@unm.edu