WSU Names Collaboration, Hinckley Award Winners

February 28, 2008

OGDEN, Utah – Weber State University geosciences professor Jeffrey Eaton has been named the 2008 John S. Hinckley Fellow, while the faculty members who teach "Interpersonal and Small Group Communication" have been named the winners of the 2008 Exemplary Collaboration Award.

Eaton, who has taught at WSU since 1995, holds a doctorate from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has studied ancient environments and early mammal evolution as preserved in the rocks of southern Utah, which includes an ongoing paleontology survey of Bryce Canyon National Park’s Cretaceous rocks. For much of his research, Eaton has partnered with his students to prepare them for success in graduate school and the workplace.

Since 1991, the Hinckley Award has been bestowed upon a member of the WSU faculty who has excelled in teaching, scholarship and service. The award is named in honor of Ogden businessman and WSU supporter John S. Hinckley, who died in 1990.

The university also announced that the 28 communication faculty members who teach "Interpersonal and Small Group Communication" have received the 2008 Exemplary Collaboration Award. In the course, faculty members organize students in small groups and require them to identify, plan and execute a service project together. With many of the classes being offered through concurrent enrollment programs in local high schools, the class has taught teamwork skills to more than 5,000 university and high school students, resulting in approximately 40,000 hours of service in communities throughout northern Utah over the past five years.

Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.

Contacts:
Michael Vaughan, provost
(801) 626-6006 • mvaughan@weber.edu

Jeff Eaton, geosciences professor
(801) 626-6225 • jeaton@weber.edu

Richard Sline, associate professor of communication
(801) 626-6535 • rsline@weber.edu

Author:
Travis Clemens, assistant director of Media Relations
(801) 626-7948 • travisclemens@weber.edu