'Distinguished' awards presented at convocation
Three Morehead State University faculty members who have distinguished themselves in their respective fields were honored during the University’s Academic Awards Convocation on Sunday, April 27.
Presentations were made to Dr. Philip E. Prater, associate professor of veterinary technology, Distinguished Teacher Award; Dr. Beverly McCauley Klecker, associate professor of education, Distinguished Researcher Award; and Dr. Robert “Bob” Willenbrink, chair of the Department of Communication and Theatre, Distinguished Creative Production Award.
Dr. Prater received his DVM degree from The Ohio State University in 1984, with an .jpg "photo-dr-phil-prater")
internship in Large Animal Ambulatory Medicine at OSU from 1985-86. He continued his education with a residency in animal reproduction at the University of Tennessee from 1986-89. While at UT, his research projects focused on assisted reproductive techniques in domestic animals, and reproductive endocrinology associated with the performance of these techniques. He became a Diplomat of the American College of Theriogenologists in 1989.
After nine years in private practice, Dr. Prater joined the faculty in Morehead State University’s Veterinary Technology Program in 1998, where his primary responsibilities include teaching large animal clinical procedures and health maintenance of the equine and food animal herds on the University Farm. He also has developed a large animal referral center for patients from veterinarians in the region. His current research interests lie in beef heifer development programs, ultrasound pregnancy diagnosis in beef cattle, and estrous synchronization programs in beef cattle and small ruminants.
Dr. Prater serves on the Kentucky Veterinary Medical Association’s Food Animal Committee, Emergency Management Committee and on the advisory board of the Kentucky Cattleman’s Association and the Kentucky Beef Network. He has served on the board of directors of the American College of Theriogenologists, an international veterinary society which studies reproduction in animals, and currently serves as the organization’s secretary. He has authored and co-authored several peer reviewed articles and four book chapters on large and small animal reproduction.
Dr. Prater serves as faculty adviser to Pre-Veterinary Medicine students and the Pre-Vet club at MSU. He has served as a faculty mentor for several undergraduate research students, and has co-authored numerous abstracts with those students. In 2006, Dr. Prater was named the Outstanding Veterinarian of the Year in the State of Kentucky by the Kentucky Veterinary Medical Association. Also in 2006, he was named the Outstanding Senior Teacher in regional university agricultural education by the American Association of State Colleges of Agriculture and Renewable Resources.
Dr. Klecker received her B.S., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from The Ohio State University. As a Graduate Research Associate, she completed doctoral work in the Quantitative Research, Evaluation, and Measurement in Education program. Her dissertation was a survey of the 10,544 teachers and 307 principals in re-structuring Venture Capital Schools in Ohio. The dissertation provided a baseline snapshot of the schools and received a 1996 Phi Delta Kappa outstanding dissertation award. Her dissertation chair was Professor William E. Loadman.
She taught at Eastern Kentucky University as an assistant professor from January 1996 through August 1999 when she joined the Kentucky Department of Education as team leader to design and carry out validation studies for the then-new Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS).
She joined Morehead State University's faculty in July 2001 and received tenure and promotion to associate professor in 2007. At MSU, opportunities beyond teaching have included serving as internal evaluator on two U.S. Department of Education multi-year grants, serving as NCATE Assessment Coordinator; evaluating the Professors in the Schools Program for three years; and working with Dr. Mary Anne Pollock and professors from MSU, Murray State University and Pikeville College on a two-year reading research grant.
Dr. Klecker is currently a Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) "Faculty Fellow" for the Kentucky Adult Learner Initiative and is working with a statewide team to design an evaluation plan for Kentucky's educational leadership master's degree redesign pilot. She has authored/co-authored more than 30 published research articles and has presented more than 50 conference papers. Her scholarly work has been cited by international and national researchers.
She recently served as vice president for e-Folios and Assessment for the international Society for Instructional Technology and Teacher Education (SITE), and currently serves as a member of the Mid-South Educational Research Foundations Board. Other memberships include the American Educational Research Association, Kentucky Counseling Association, Phi Kappa Phi, American MENSA, and the Ohio State University Alumni Association (life member).
Dr. Willenbrink also is the interim director of MSU's George M. Luckey Jr. Academic Honors Program for the spring and summer terms of 2008.
A two-time MSU graduate, Dr. Willenbrink received his bachelor's degree in theatre and a master's degree in communications. He holds a doctoral degree in theatre from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Since 2002, he has served as professor and department chair at MSU, and as the W. Paul and Lucille Caudill Little endowed chair of theatre since 2004.
In addition to directing a number of plays at MSU, he has written and directed plays for MSU Theatre's Little Company. The troupe has performed and conducted workshops for hundreds of schools throughout the region and the Commonwealth. This year the troupe will perform at more than 105 schools for more than 32,000 students.
He was the founder of ACTS, a performing arts troupe for disabled artists he has directed at Jenny Wiley Theatre and presently serves as a director for the Kincaid Regional Theatre in Falmouth.
Prior to his employment at MSU, Dr. Willenbrink was chair, director of theatre and professor in the Department of Speech, Theatre and Mass Communication at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
Posted: 4-27-08
