Teaching and Faculty Support Center Announces New Co-Directors

The Wally Cordes Teaching and Faculty Support Center is pleased to announce that Mary Savin and Linda Myers will join John Pijanowski as co-directors. Mary Savin has accepted a three-year appointment to fill the vacancy left when Jeannie Whayne's term expires on Aug. 14. Linda Myers is replacing Mark Boyer who has taken a position as director of the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University. She will complete the last two years of his three-year appointment to the support center.

Mary Savin

Savin is professor of microbial ecology and soil biology in the Department of Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. She is a qualified environmental professional, certified through the Institute of Professional Environmental Practice, and researches the microbial ecology of both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. She is interested in how the ecology and biogeochemistry of various systems, and the ability to utilize biological organisms as objective indicators of response, are affected by disturbances and management.

She earned her B.S. at the University of Notre Dame, worked in the Environmental Analysis Unit at Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, Massachusetts, earned her M.S. in biodegradation and Ph.D. in soil ecology at the University of Rhode Island, and conducted post-doctoral research in marine microbial ecology at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.

Savin joined the university in 2002, is a member of the UA Teaching Academy, received the 2012 Alumni Advising Award from the Dale Bumpers College, and the 2011 Faculty Gold Medal from the UA Office of Nationally Competitive Awards. She is a co-advisor for the nationally award-winning CSES Undergraduate Club. Savin has taught or co-taught eight courses and four laboratories from freshmen through graduate level. In addition to mentoring graduate students, she has mentored undergraduate students in research, independent study, and Honors thesis projects. She is the faculty editor of Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, an associate editor of Natural Sciences Education, and is actively involved in the Education and Extension Section of the American Society of Agronomy and the Soil Biology division of the Soil Science Society of America.

Linda Myers

Myers is a distinguished professor of accounting in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Myers completed her doctoral degree at the University of Michigan in 2001 and was a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at Texas A&M University before joining the faculty at the University of Arkansas in 2008. She currently holds the Garrison/Wilson Endowed Chair and serves the accounting department as doctoral program director.

Her research interests are varied and include audit markets, corporate disclosure, and financial reporting quality. She has published extensively and serves an editor and on editorial boards of a number of journals in her discipline. Her research has been cited in the business press and by capital markets regulators and she is invited to make numerous research presentations, both nationally and internationally, each year.

Myers received the Financial Executives Research Foundation's award for the outstanding Accounting Review article in 2004, the American Accounting Association's Financial Accounting and Reporting Section Best Paper Award in 2009, and the American Accounting Association's Notable Contribution to the Auditing Literature Award in 2014. She also received the 2012-2013 Faculty Excellence in Research Award at the Walton College. Myers' teaching experience is varied. She has taught financial accounting and managerial accounting to undergraduate and M.B.A. students, as well as doctoral seminars and an academic research seminar to masters of accounting students. 

John Pijanowski

Pijanowski is a professor of educational leadership with a research focus on leadership development and how people translate moral thinking into action. He has authored or co-authored 40 publications and directed grants and gifts totaling more than $4 million.

Currently, he is directing a project for the National Science Foundation to develop ethics curriculum and pedagogical tools for training emerging scientists. In 2010 he was honored with the college's top faculty award for outstanding service, teaching, advising and research, and in 2011 honored by the university with the Charles and Nadine Baum Faculty Teaching Award. In 2015-16 he will serve as chair of the Campus Faculty and vice president of the Teaching Academy. Pijanowski earned his B.A. in psychology from Brown University and a M.S. and Ph.D. from Cornell University in social and philosophical foundations of education.