University Awards

anthology of collected works by Soror Maria do Céu, a translation of the nun’s allegory Enganos do bosque, desenganos do rio, and an edition of her earliest extant work, Escarmentos de flores. Additionally, Valerie is translating the coded letters that Leonor de Almeida Portugal, the fourth Marquise de Alorna, wrote (sometimes in invisible ink) to her father while they were both imprisoned. Valerie received a Scholarly Editions and Translations Grant (2012-2014) from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support her work on Maria do Céu. In March this year, the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater awarded her the David Gitlitz Comedia Prize in Pedagogy and Mentorship. She served as a “Founding Member” of the Grupo de Estudios sobre la Mujer en España y las Américas (pre-1800) (GEMELA), as a regional delegate to the board of the Cervantes Society of America, and as an executive committee member and chair of the MLA’s Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Drama Division. A recipient of three BYU Mentoring Environments Grants, she organized two College of Humanities theater festivals and collaborated with Dale Pratt to mentor the production of seven full-length Spanish plays and several shorter pieces. She has served as the coordinator of the Global Women’s Studies Program and faculty advisor to the Women’s Studies Honor Society since 2011.

Matt Wickman Karl G. Maeser Research & Creative Works Award

Since earning his PhD at UCLA and joining BYU’s English Department in 2000, Matt has published two interdisciplinary monographs (involving literature, law, mathematics, and the sciences) and more than thirty articles. He has also lectured at dozens of universities around the world and contributed widely in areas of the public humanities. Specializing in Scottish literary and intellectual history, he was offered a full-time position at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen in 2009, which he negotiated to a joint appointment with BYU. He then returned to BYU full-time in 2012 when he was named Founding Director of the BYU Humanities Center. Working in multiple fields and invested in faculty research across the college, his own current research and teaching explores the nature, meanings, and forms of spiritual experience as a phenomenon that touches all aspects of life, secular as well as religious.

Jamin C. Rowan Douglas K. Christensen Teaching & Learning Faculty Fellowship

Dr. Rowan joined the BYU faculty in 2010. His research on the intersection between urban narratives and city planning—the focus of his recently published book, The Sociable City—closely informs his teaching. In 2017, he launched the Provo City Lab, a course in which students work with organizations such as Provo City and Utah Transit Authority to improve urban design, public transportation, and community development. In this course and others, Dr. Rowan strives to provide students with opportunities to translate their

humanities competencies to professional and civic contexts, and to help them learn to narrate the value of those competencies for others.

Chinese Flagship Center Creative Works Award

The BYU Chinese Flagship Program was established in 2002 by a grant from the National Security Education Program (NSEP). Its mission is to develop high Chinese proficiency levels in students. The Program is an intense and rewarding language program that correlates with student's career goals. It consists of three phases: 1) BYU on-campus directed study, 2) direct enrollment at either Nanjing University or Beijing Union University in China, and 3) an internship in a Chinese institution related to the student's major or area of interest. The program is highly individualized and allows students to successfully focus on their specific academic and professional interests. Flagship students are prepared to function professionally in Chinese within their chosen field of interest. This often leads to students entering China-related careers, government service, or similar professions. The BYU Chinese flagship Center is receiving a special award from Creative Works Award for the project Step by Step, a series of children's books for grades one through three, was created with Chinese Flagship Center funding and with collaborative funding from the Utah State Board of Education. It was developed by a team of editors, writers, illustrators, artists and other staff who worked in the Chinese Flagship Center. The books were developed for use among Utah's many Chinese Immersion Programs. The rights to the series were sold to Cheng and Tsui publishing a few years ago and is still being used by Chinese learners in Utah and other states.