Appointments, honors and activities
June 7, 2013
• Appointments and promotions:
- Shane Hawkins-Wilding has been named the new director of the Office of Student Services in the College of Health and Human Sciences. His appointment is effective July 1, and he replaces Linda Conner who will retire July 12. Most recently Hawkins-Wilding served as the assistant director of HHS Student Services.
• Faculty and staff honors:
- Chris Maxwell, senior research and planning analyst in the Office of Institutional Research, has received the Association of American Universities Data Exchange's Distinguished Service Award. John Vaughn, executive vice president of AAU, said Maxwell has "shown leadership and initiative in a broad range of AAUDE activities and … has taken the lead in the implementation of the graduate student stipend recommendation of the AAU Institutional Data Committee." The AAUDE says the award is given to members who have performed outstanding service over an extended period of time.
• Notables:
- A British company that specializes in information about higher education and careers has ranked the Purdue College of Agriculture sixth among agricultural institutions worldwide. Quacquarelli Symonds ranks learning institutions across the globe in 31 categories based on several metrics. The group selected the University of California, Davis, as the top school in the agriculture and forestry category for 2013. "This ranking is testimony to the hard work of College of Agriculture faculty, staff and students and the support we receive from the university, stakeholders, partners, and alumni," said Jay Akridge, Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture at Purdue University." Recognitions such as this QS ranking illustrate the impact our people have." Universities are ranked based on four main criteria: the number of times research publications from the institution were cited by other researchers in professional journals; the opinions of other academics in the field; the opinions of employers in the field; and the "H-index," a quantitative and qualitative measurement of research paper output. Purdue's College of Agriculture placed behind the University of California, Davis, Wageningen University in the Netherlands, Cornell University, the University of Wisconsin and Texas A&M University.
