Contact: Sarah Nicholas

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State’s College of Arts and Sciences this month is honoring the current dean of the Judy and Bobby Shackouls Honors College, along with posthumously honoring a former English department faculty member.

Christopher A. Snyder, dean of the Shackouls Honors College and professor in the Department of History, and the late Wendy Herd, a former associate professor in the Department of English who died in 2020, are this year’s Robert E. Wolverton Legacy Award recipients.

Snyder is the founding dean of the honors college, which he has led for a decade, overseeing growth in enrollment and programming, managing the college’s programs at the University of Oxford and University of Glasgow, and expanding opportunities for MSU students and faculty in the United Kingdom.

Herd joined the university in 2011 and taught nearly every course in the university’s linguistics program, specializing in phonetics. Faculty and students remember her as a “beloved teacher and mentor.”

Created in 2014 in honor of Wolverton, a professor of classics at MSU for nearly four decades, his legacy award honors faculty who have made long-term contributions to the College of Arts and Sciences and have advocated the ideals of liberal arts education.

Six additional research and teaching awards also are recognizing faculty members for their scholarly achievements and commitments to the university. Usually held in conjunction with the spring general faculty meeting, this year the college presented the annual awards through a virtual platform.

Given to faculty whose work contributes significantly to increasing awareness of the university’s research programs and capabilities, the annual research awardees include:

—Catherine Pierce, professor, Department of English, the Arts and Sciences Research Award in the Humanities.

—Kimberly M. Wood, assistant professor, Department of Geosciences, the Arts and Sciences Research Award in Natural and Physical Sciences and Mathematics and Statistics.

—Molly K. Zuckerman, associate professor, Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies, the Arts and Sciences Research Award in Social and Behavioral Sciences. 

For outstanding teaching service, the annual teaching awardees include:

—Raymond E. Barranco, associate professor, Department of Sociology, the Arts and Sciences Teaching Award in Social and Behavioral Sciences. 

—Scott J. DiGiulio, assistant professor, Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures, the Arts and Sciences Teaching Award in the Humanities. 

—Whitnee Nettles, assistant clinical professor, Department of Chemistry, the Arts and Sciences Teaching Award in Natural and Physical Sciences and Mathematics and Statistics. 

MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences includes more than 5,200 students, 325 full-time faculty members, nine doctoral programs, 14 master’s programs, and 27 undergraduate academic majors offered in 14 departments. It also is home to the most diverse units for research and scholarly activities, including natural and physical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and the humanities. Complete details about the College of Arts and Sciences may be found at www.cas.msstate.edu.  

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.