Elon College, the College of Arts & Sciences, honors three professors

Olivia Choplin, Meredith Allison and Jeff Clark were recognized during Planning Week 2015 for their accomplishments during the previous academic year.

Three Elon University professors were honored in August by Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences, for their teaching, scholarship and service during the 2014-15 academic year.

Olivia Choplin, associate professor of French in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, received the Excellence in Teaching Award, which recognizes a faculty member who exemplifies the Elon teacher-scholar – outstanding in the classroom, current in the discipline, and committed to the intellectual development of students. 

Since joining the Elon faculty in 2009, Choplin has taught several French courses, including “French Theater in Production” and “Exiled at Home: Explorations in Quebecois Literature,” two new 300-level electives related to her research interests.

She was the first to offer a section of the new “Senior Capstone Seminar” for French majors and “French for the Business World.” She is also a successful mentor of undergraduate research.

Thoughtfully and carefully structured course goals and assignments repeatedly and clearly demonstrate that Choplin strives to support new pedagogies and initiatives such as her department’s First Flight writing to learn initiative; and the department’s key goals to enhance linguistic proficiency, intercultural competency and critical thinking.

In addition to the crafting of assignments to integrate and assess learning goals, Choplin is also becoming a department leader in “flipping the classroom” by using technology to enhance student learning outside out class to enable more engagement in the classroom. This is seen in her work as part of Elon’s team for the Teagle Foundation’s Collaborative Humanities Redesign Project grant, which focuses on modifications to FRE 222.

Associate Professor Meredith Allison in the Department of Psychology received the Excellence in Scholarship Award, which recognizes a faculty member whose scholarly work has a significant intellectual impact. Elon’s teacher-scholar model describes scholarship as “the most fundamental form of professional activity.”

Allison joined the Elon faculty in 2006 and has since demonstrated a continuous record of high achievement in all aspects of faculty work.

As a scholar interested in the interface of psychology and the law, Allison has a particular interest in the ways in which social psychology can inform legal issues. She has conducted several studies on perceptions of alibis, eyewitnesses’ memories for events, people’s perceptions of eyewitness accuracy and confidence, and stereotypes of older adult witnesses, offenders, and victims. She has also collaborated with colleagues in the criminal justice area on studies of people’s knowledge of laws and accompanying punishments.

Finally, Allison is interested in interpersonal communication and has studied the use of gestures in dialogues.

While Allison has a record of continuous scholarly engagement and productivity, the 2014-2015 academic year was a particularly good one with four peer-reviewed publications that include three journal articles and one book chapter, with different undergraduate co-authors.  She also had a peer-reviewed presentation last year at an international conference in the Netherlands. 

With her interests and professional expertise situated at the interface of psychology and law, Allison routinely teaches courses including criminal behavior, social psychology, psychology and law, and research methods.  

Professor Jeff Clark in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics was honored with the Elon College Excellence in Service-Leadership Award, which recognizes a faculty member who “richly contributes to the ongoing welfare and betterment of the college, university and profession,” thereby upholding the educational mission and leadership valued at Elon University.

Clark concluded a term of service as the department chair in spring of 2012.  During his term, he helped double enrollment in the major over two years’ time.  He served on a departmental committee to revise the curriculum for linear algebra and mathematical reasoning during 2013 & 2014, and he coordinated assessment of the pure and applied concentrations in the mathematics program in 2013 and 2014. 

Clark also led the department’s committee coordinating their participation in the University’s First Flight writing excellence initiative. 

On the university level, Clark served as a sabbatical replacement on Academic Council during spring 2014, and he began serving on the Institutional Review Board in the fall of 2014. He has served on the University Curriculum Committee for several years, including as chair last year, and was re-elected as the chair for this year.