Appointments, awards and honors

Avijit Ghosh

Appointments

Avijit Ghosh, a former business school dean who has served in senior leadership positions across the University of Illinois System for nearly two decades, was named the system’s permanent vice president and chief financial officer. Ghosh, who has filled the role in an interim capacity since a national search was launched last fall, assumed the position on a permanent basis effective June 1, pending approval by the Board of Trustees at its July 19 meeting.

Awards

Cedric Johnson, associate professor of African American studies and political science, was named the winner of the 2017 Daniel Singer Millennium Prize for his article, “The Panthers Can’t Save Us Now: Anti-Policing Struggles & the Limits of Black Power.” In the essay published in Spring 2017 by Catalyst, Johnson argues that contemporary mass-incarceration policies aim more at managing generalized social inequality rather than simply targeting the black urban poor, and notes the political limitations of black exceptionalism. The $2,500 prize was awarded at a Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation-sponsored panel June 2 during the Left Forum Conference in New York City.

Grants

Jennifer Cabrelli Amaro, assistant professor of Spanish linguistics, and Sara Stefanich, a doctoral candidate in Hispanic linguistics, were awarded a $14,508 grant through the National Science Foundation’s Linguistics Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Awards program. The grant will support their project that investigates code-switching, or the use of two languages in a single linguistic unit, among English/Spanish bilinguals. Using speech perception and speech production data, the UIC researchers aim to provide insight into the interaction of languages in the bilingual mind and highlight the rule-governed and principled nature of code-switching itself.

Service

Lan Chaplin, associate professor of marketing, teamed up with new and returning students and alumni to help prepare and disperse 300 care packages across downtown Chicago as part of Operation Odyssey for the annual Team Chaplin Day of Service.