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Auburn University Faculty Awards

Auburn University Faculty Awards

The 2010 Gerald and Emily Leischuck Endowed Presidential Awards for Excellence in Teaching

These awards honor two full-time, tenured faculty members who have demonstrated effective and innovative teaching methods and a continuing commitment to student success through advising and mentoring inside and outside the classroom.

Donna Bohanan
Joseph A. Kicklighter Endowed Professor - History
College of Liberal Arts

Picture of Donna Bohanan

Donna Bohanan, who teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in early modern Europe and world history, says her favorite place on campus is her office, which she describes as "bursting at the seams" with books, research, and students' papers. In the classroom, Bohanan uses notary inventories of noble estates to reconstruct the contents and decorative schemes of homes. She has published two books: Old and New Nobility in Aix-en-Provence, 1600-1695: Portrait of an Urban Elite, in 1992, and Crown and Nobility in Early Modern France in 2001. She is also working on another book-length project and has contributed a chapter to Furnishing the Eighteenth Century, edited by Kathryn Norberg and Dena Goodman. Bohanan started at Auburn in 1982, and finds that being able to teach students ranging from freshmen to doctoral-level at Auburn is richly rewarding.

Elizabeth Guertal
Alumni Professor – Agronomy and Soils
College Agriculture

Picture of Elizabeth Guertal

Elizabeth Guertal conducts research and teaches in the area of turfgrass management with a focus on soil fertility and fertilization. She specializes in the area of fertilizer management and the environmental consequences of applied fertilizer. She served as associate editor for Crop ScienceSoil Science Society of America Journal and the Agronomy Journal, and as a technical editor for Crop Science. Her biggest inspiration was her mother, Barbara, who received her degree in animal science in 1950—a time when it was rare for women to have a degree in agriculture. Guertal enjoys spending time with her children, Will and Sam, at the Turf Unit where they assist her in collecting data and writing down plot numbers and quality ratings that she provides. She is a fellow in the American Society of Agronomy and is currently serving as a Fulbright scholar on the island of Mauritius.