Contact:
Aaron Podolefsky, provost and vice president for academic affairs, (319) 273-2517
Gwenne Culpepper, Office of Public Relations, (319) 273-2761
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Sue Courts is the new director of the University of Northern Iowa Health Center. She has a master's in nursing, with a triple focus in business administration, hospital and health care administration, and nursing administration. Courts most recently served as nurse manager of the trauma center at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids, a position she had held since 1990. Before that, she worked at Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo as health educational facilitator, health supervisor and staff nurse.
She earned her B.S. in nursing from the University of Iowa, and her diploma in nursing from the Allen School of Nursing. She replaces Lew Harden, who stepped down from the position earlier this year but will be staying on as a physician at the clinic.
In other administrative news, three interim appointments to academic administrative positions at the university were recently announced.
Joel Haack has been named interim dean of the College of Natural Sciences; Gregory Dotseth, interim head of the Department of Mathematics; and Marilyn Mercado, interim dean of library services. All appointments are effective July 1.
Haack is replacing Gerald Intemann, who accepted a post as dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at Towson University in Towson, Md.
Haack has been professor and head of the UNI Department of Mathematics since coming to the university in 1991. He previously taught at Oklahoma State University and the University of Iowa. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Iowa, he holds a B.A., two M.S. degrees and a Ph.D. from that institution. He received teaching excellence awards from both UNI and OSU, and has been an advocate for quality undergraduate education and teaching.
Dotseth, associate professor of mathematics, joined the UNI faculty in 1966 and will serve in the position temporarily vacated by Haack. Dotseth holds B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Luther College, Western Washington State University and Iowa State University, respectively. He previously taught junior high science and high school physics and mathematics in the Independence Community Schools.
Mercado came to UNI's Rod Library as head of the cataloging department in 1989. She was named acting associate dean of library services in 1998 and was named to the associate dean post in 1999. She replaces Herbert Safford, who will serve in an internal post in Rod Library. She holds a B.A. in English literature from Point Park College in Pittsburgh, an M.L.S. degree from the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and an M.A. degree in history from UNI.
Mercado previously worked in library cataloging at the University of South Florida and was a librarian at Interamerican University in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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Contact:
Mohammed Rawwas, UNI associate professor marketing, (319) 273-6946
Vicki Grimes, UNI Office of Public Relations, (319) 273-2761
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa— Mohammed Rawwas, UNI associate professor of marketing, was recently named a Sam M. Walton Free Enterprise Fellow for his work with the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) Team at the University of Northern Iowa during the 2000 SIFE Regional Exposition and Career Opportunity Fair in Minneapolis.
Also in attendance at the SIFE event were members of the UNI SIFE team. The students participating were: Matt Brown, Newton; Shane Peitscher, Bettendorf; Ahmed Salam, Cedar Rapids; Maggie Stravers, Prairie City; and Mike Freeman, East Moline, Ill. They presented their educational outreach projects, which included giving presentations in Cedar Falls and Waterloo high schools about the benefits of free enterprise; helping the Waterloo community by cleaning, staining wood fences and painting statues in a Waterloo park; allowing high school students to shadow UNI SIFE Team members during college; and teaching high school students stock market investment.
The Sam M. Walton Fellows train more than 30,000 SIFE Team members annually. The fellowship was created in 1990 by the Wal-Mart Foundation and is named for Samuel Moore Walton, founder and chairman of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
SIFE is a non-profit organization that works in partnership with business and higher education to provide college students the opportunity to develop leadership, teamwork and communication skills through learning, practicing and teaching the principles of free enterprise. The organization is active on more than 700 college campuses in 48 states and 15 countries.
For more information, contact Rawwas at (319) 273-6946.
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Contact:
Mindy Berkland, UNI Department of Industrial Technology, student recruitment and special services assistant, (319) 273-2562
Vicki Grimes, UNI Office of Public Relations, (319) 273-2761
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa —Brody Koopmans, Hawarden, was recently awarded the $1,000 Matthew C. McCoy Memorial Scholarship at the University of Northern Iowa.
Koopmans, the son of Gayle Gregg and Robert Koopmans, is a senior construction management major. He is also a 1995 graduate of West Sioux High School.
The scholarship is named for Matthew C. McCoy, Adel, who was a construction management major. When he was killed during his senior year, McCoy's family, friends and classmates established a scholarship in his name, to be awarded annually to a deserving construction management major.
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