"This award is meaningful to me because it speaks to a sense of home here in Auburn. For academics, our lives can sometimes feel like road shows. There's the home where we're born, and the homes of institutions where we first learned to do what we do, and then there's the place where we land and get to teach and share what we've learned. This award is a kind of verification, for me, that the place where I've landed is another kind of home, one where there is a place at the table for me."

Chantel Acevedo's first novel, Love and Ghost Letters won the Latino International Book Award and was a finalist for the Connecticut Book of the Year. Song of the Red Cloak, a historical novel for young adults, was published in 2011. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Poetry Review, North American Review, and Chattahoochee Review, among others. Acevedo was named a Literature Fellow by the Alabama State Council on the Arts in 2012. She is currently an associate professor of English and Alumni Writer-in-Residence at Auburn University, where she founded the Auburn Writers Conference and edits the Southern Humanities Review. Acevedo said she is most proud of her work with the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities, the College of Liberal Arts, and the Department of English in launching the annual Auburn Writers Conference, an event for writers in the community and region, which brings attention to the literary arts in Auburn.

"Being a recipient of this award is a great honor and privilege. It not only gives recognition to my research, but also recognizes my desire to extend our work to the industry and make a difference in agriculture locally, nationally, and internationally."

Throughout his career, D. Allen Davis has dedicated his research and teaching efforts to improving technologies for the culture of marine and freshwater species for stock enhancement and aquaculture. As a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures, his work has emphasized graduate student education, the development and improvement of commercial feeds and feed management strategies, and the providing of continuing education opportunities to the industry. Davis has co-authored over 112 journal articles and 10 book chapters, and has contributed to over 50 articles and symposium proceedings. Most recently, he served as a committee member for the National Research Council book titled, Nutrient Requirements of Fish and Shrimp, which was published in 2011. He serves as associate editor for the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society and is on the editorial board for Aquaculture Nutrition. Davis said his greatest source of inspiration is his family.

"This award validates that the university values graduate instruction and research. This is important for those of us who would like to see Auburn advance on the world stage."

Henry W. Kinnucan came to Auburn in 1983 after serving three years as a research associate in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Cornell University. His published work includes four co-edited books and 100 journal articles, and his international experience includes teaching stints at China Agricultural University in Beijing, Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, National Taiwan Ocean University in Keelung, and University of Tromsø in Norway. Kinnucan has been particularly dedicated to graduate instruction, advising through to completion 15 master's students and 19 doctoral students. Upon assuming the duties as graduate program officer in 2004, he led a successful effort to incorporate a journal-quality research paper into the requirements for a Ph.D. in applied economics. In recognition of these and other efforts, Kinnucan received the Auburn University Provost's Award for Supporting Graduate Scholarship. He has earned several awards including the 2009 Senior Research Award conferred by the director of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station; the Distinguished Professional Contribution Award; and the Lifetime Achievement Award conferred by the Southern Agricultural Economics Association in 2008 and 2012, respectively.

"A lot of people supported my nomination for this award. I am honored that students and colleagues believe in me and would take the time to contribute to the nomination packet. I am particularly honored that former College of Education Dean Fran Kochan, who nominated me, thinks I deserve such a prestigious award."

Margaret Ross completed her Ph.D. at the University of Kansas with a major area of concentration in quantitative methods and research design and a minor area of concentration in clinical child psychology. She teaches courses in quantitative analysis, program evaluation, and research design. Her research interests include assessment issues and policy; program evaluation focusing on the learning outcome effects of educational contexts and processes; and, from a sociocultural perspective, the effects of the interplay among assessment, teaching and classroom environmental variables on student learning and motivation. Ross currently serves as principal investigator on a National Science Foundation evaluation grant assessing learning outcomes of a middle school science intervention in 27 Alabama Black Belt District schools. Her most recent outreach activity was to provide professional development in quantitative research methods to faculty at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, and she plans to pursue additional opportunities to collaborate with faculty and students in Costa Rica. Additionally, she acts as a North American co-editor for the international journal Educational Research and Evaluation. She said her family is her biggest source of inspiration.

"My main teacher through multiple college degrees and guide to what it means to be a scholar and educator was Kim Rotzoll at University of Illinois. He showed me that better education comes from more than managing and assessing how many petty details are absorbed by everybody in the room. On being a member of business faculty, I often repeat his admonitions that we must keep in mind we are educating students for their last job, not training them for their first."

Herbert Jack Rotfeld joined the College of Business faculty in 1988 after 13 years at other universities. He is a scholar of government regulation of deceptive advertising and business self-regulation. Rotfeld coined the term misplaced marketing for his book, Adventures in Misplaced Marketing, as well as for numerous research essays that focus on the mistakes, criticisms and common misunderstandings of business practices. He said that by fortuitous accident, a degree of international fame, or maybe infamy, has been generated by his newspaper, business press, and internet essays discussing consumer views of marketing and the nature of academic research. Recently finishing a decade as editor of the Journal of Consumer Affairs, he has been honored by the American Academy of Advertising with their Ivan Preston Outstanding Contribution to Advertising Research Award and the Kim Rotzoll Award for Advertising Ethics and Social Responsibility. In addition, he served as the organization's president in 2011. An active member of the Auburn community, he received the American Association of University Professors campus chapter's Glenn Howze Academic Freedom Award in 2011 and currently serves as the chapter president.