Accomplished English, Biology profs receive YSU Heritage Award
Accomplished faculty members Bege Bowers and Lauren Schroeder receive Youngstown State University’s Heritage Award at the annual Faculty and Staff Showcase 6 p.m. May 2 at Mr. Anthony’s in Boardman.
The award is the highest honor bestowed by YSU on former faculty and administrators.
Also at the May 2 event, YSU presents Distinguished Professor Awards for faculty and Distinguished Service Awards for university staff.
Bowers worked at YSU from 1984 to 2012, moving through the faculty ranks in the Department of English, and later serving as associate to the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, assistant provost and associate provost for Academic Programs and Planning, and interim provost and vice president for Academic.
She received Distinguished Professorship Awards for teaching, public service and university service, is a distinguished member of Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society, an honorary member of the Golden Key International Honor Society and the recipient of the College English Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Society for Technical Communication’s Jay R. Gould Award for excellence in teaching, mentoring and professional writing and editing, and the MLA Prize for Distinguished Bibliography.
Bowers served on YSU’s Strategic Planning Committee, Strategic Planning Executive Committee, and Strategic Planning Communications Committee, was YSU’s liaison to Higher Learning Commission, was involved in the Ohio Board of Regents program approval process, and served on the English Department’s English Festival and Press Day committees. She also served on and made presentations at several national and regional professional organizations.
Schroeder served as assistant to the director of the National Science Foundation and research assistant to the U.S. Antarctic Research Program in 1967 prior to joining the faculty of YSU’s Biological Sciences department in 1968, retiring in 1996.
A specialist in the field of ecology, Schroeder received several NSF grants for research in the areas of resource control and evolutionary tendencies which develop to adapt new resources. He was a pioneer in bringing the word “ecology” to his students, finding dramatic ways to illustrate his lectures, taking ecology lab students into the field to measure the energy flowing through the biomass, or on aquatic sampling trips to Lake Glacier, Lake Erie and area strip mine ponds. He also was instrumental in organizing YSU’s first Earth Day observance. He is a member of the Ecological Societies of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Biological Science, the Ohio Academy of Science and the Sigma Xi and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies.