Crosby, Tunnell Receive Highest Honor for Teaching Excellence
Dr. Richard Crosby and Dr. Kenneth Tunnell are the latest faculty members to earn Eastern Kentucky University’s highest honor for teaching excellence.
Crosby, a professor in the Department of Music, and Tunnell, a professor in the School of Justice Studies, have received the 2014-16 EKU Foundation Professorship. The annual honor recognizes those who demonstrate outstanding abilities in the three primary roles of a faculty member: teaching, service and research. The professorship provides a salary supplement for two years.
Crosby, who joined the EKU faculty in 1986, teaches piano and music history. Throughout his career, he has also been a prolific performer and composer. One of his more recent contributions, “Tribute,” is a work for middle school band that has been added to state band repertoire lists in several states, and his “Appalachian Variations” has been performed by college and high school bands in numerous states. Another of Crosby’s compositions is “A Walt Whitman Portrait,” a three-movement work that incorporates three Whitman poems about the Civil War.
He has served three terms as national president of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia and in 2009 became only the fifth recipient of that organization’s Ossian E. Mills Award, which honors Sinfonians whose work for the fraternity and commitment to its highest ideals are deemed exemplary. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the National Band Association Foundation.
Crosby also is a six-time recipient of the ASCAPLUS Award for composition, and released a CD through Capstone Records entitled “An American Portrait.”
He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Cincinnati.
Tunnell, who joined the EKU faculty in 1989, is the author of numerous books, including “Living off Crime,” “Choosing Crime: The Criminal Calculus of Property Offenders,” “Pissing on Demand: Workplace Drug Testing and the Rise of the Detox Industry,” and “Once upon a Place: The Fading of Community in Rural Kentucky,” and dozens of book chapters and journal articles. He also serves on the editorial board of Sociological Spectrum and Crime, Media, Culture, and has served as a referee for numerous journals.
Tunnell was nominated in 1994 and 2001 for the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Outstanding Book Award and in 1993 for the American Society of Criminology’s Outstanding Book Award.
He was the EKU Program of Distinction Research Fellow in 2002 and 2008
Tunnell earned his bachelor’s degree at East Tennessee State University, his master’s degree from Middle Tennessee State University and his doctoral degree from the University of Tennessee.
All full-time tenured faculty members are eligible for the award. The selection is made by a committee composed of faculty, and the process provides for a high degree of peer review.
Fifty-six professors have been honored for teaching excellence by the EKU Foundation since the awards were first given in 1988.
Published on April 02, 2014