24 February 2006

Longwood professor receives statewide teaching award

Dr. Melanie Marks, a Longwood University economics professor, has been selected to receive the highest honor for a faculty member at a Virginia college or university.

Dr. Marks was one of 15 professors from public and private institutions to receive the 2006 Outstanding Faculty Awards from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. The awards were presented Thursday (Feb. 23) during a banquet at the Library of Virginia in Richmond in which the speakers included Gov. Tim Kaine.

Longwood President Patricia Cormier said, “Dr. Marks is one of our most accomplished faculty members. We are extremely proud of her achievements with both our students and the larger community. Her boundless energy is an inspiration to all of us.”

The award, which includes a $5,000 prize, was established by the 1986 Virginia General Assembly to recognize superior accomplishments in teaching, research and public service. Dr. Marks is the first Longwood faculty member to receive the award since Dr. James Jordan, professor of anthropology, in 1992.

“I am shocked and honored to receive this award,” Dr. Marks said. “But, there are many people who should be sharing this glory with me. I am surrounded by talented people who share my vision, and I am employed at an institution that values creativity and innovation.”

Dr. Marks, a full professor, came to Longwood in 1993 charged with the task of building the economics major, then in its first year. Colleagues and students praise her for innovative approaches that they say engage students, including using tennis balls in her Principles of Microeconomics course, to illustrate the diminishing benefits of adding workers to a fixed process, and fishing simulations in her Environmental Economics class to illustrate the incentives of open-access resources vs. private property rights. Many students have become economics or business majors after taking one of her introductory classes.

“Dr. Marks is an outstanding teacher and scholar with boundless creative energy,” said Dr. Evelyn Hume, dean of the College of Business & Economics. “She is a genuine asset to her discipline and highly deserving of this award.”

In addition to her teaching, Dr. Marks is director of the Longwood Center for Economic Education (LCEE), which provides economics programs to K-12 educators. The LCEE holds various workshops and other programs for students and teachers, including a week-long Our World is a Global Village day camp last July that attracted 21 elementary school students, which evolved from a grant she had written.

“Her spirit and drive are unmatched, and her commitment to LCEE’s programs goes far beyond research and curriculum development,” Diana Clark Shores, the Center’s program manager, said of Dr. Marks. “She gives teachers practical tools to teach economics in the K-12 classroom.”

Last September she received Longwood’s Maude Glenn Raiford Award for Excellence in Teaching, and honors from the College of Business & Economics include the 2003 Outstanding Advisor Award and the 1997 Outstanding Teaching Award. She has published numerous articles in refereed journals, won two research awards, written more than a dozen successful research and economic education grants, and is adviser to the Longwood chapter of professional business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi and co-owner of M&M Publishing.

She and Cyndee Moore, the other co-owner of M&M Publishing, based in Danville, have co-authored three K-12 economic curriculum books that have won state and national awards. The first book, Chocolate Economics: A Tasty Curriculum for Grades K-8, has been adopted by colleges, centers for economic education and school systems in 48 states. The most recent book, The Buck Starts Here: Economics, Money, and Children’s Literature, won a second-place award from the National Federation of Press Women last year and a first-place award from the Virginia Press Women in 2004.

Dr. Marks developed and is co-director, with a Longwood colleague, Dr. Roman Cech, of the Slovakia Scholars Program, a year-long study seminar about the economic and democratic systems of this Eastern European country. The program, in its third year, is part of Longwood’s participation in the American Democracy Project. Dr. Marks and Dr. Cech, a Slovakia native, took seven students to Slovakia and neighboring countries for nine days last May.

A Dallas native, Dr. Marks has B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from Texas A&M University. She resides in Farmville with her husband, Kevin Sheehan, a certified public accountant, and their two children, Colton and Chaney. In the community, she is director of soccer for the Prince Edward-Farmville Youth Association.