The Connecticut State Colleges and (CSCU) System’s Board of Regents’ (BOR) has named two faculty members at Eastern Connecticut State University as recipients of campus-level faculty awards for 2019.  Mark Fabrizi, associate professor of education, won the BOR Teaching Award, and Fatma Pakdil, associate professor of business administration, won the BOR Research Award. A $1,000 prize comes with each award.

The teaching award recognizes “faculty who have distinguished themselves as outstanding teachers for at least five years and have a minimum of two years’ track record of promoting instructional improvements for their programs/departments.” The research awards recognizes “faculty from the state universities who are doing exceptional research/creative work.”

Fabrizi teaches courses in secondary English teaching methods, literacy strategies and writing pedagogy.  Prior to coming to Eastern, he spent 18 years as a high school English teacher, teaching classes in advanced placement language and composition, fantasy literature, film studies, media literacy and creative writing. 

Fabrizi’s dissertation research, completed at the University of Hull in Great Britain, centered on the development of critical literacy skills in high school students, using fantasy literature.  He published an edited volume of research on teaching fantasy literature with a focus on critical literacy titled “Fantasy Literature: Challenging Genres” (Sense, 2016), and another edited volume on teaching horror literature titled “Horror Literature and Dark Fantasy: Challenging Genres” (Brill, 2018). He also is editor of “The Leaflet,” the professional journal publication of the New England Association of Teachers of English. 

Pakdil’s research focuses on statistical quality control and lean management and their effects on human resource management in health care organizations. Her current research analyzes and monitors hospital “length of stay” (LOS) to help improve healthcare quality. Pakdil developed the Healthcare Management Minor and Healthcare Management Concentration in the Department of Business Administration.

Prior to coming to Eastern, Pakdil taught at Indiana and Auburn Universities, and at universities in Turkey. In Turkey, she also served as an auditor at government agencies, auditing institutions to accredit their certification systems. She has served on the international Technical Committee of Application of Statistical Methods that represents the United States in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Her dissertation was titled “Corporate (Organizational) Performance Improvement in Service Sector and a Proposed Model for Hospitals.” In 2016, she coauthored a book, “Performance Leadership.” She has published two book chapters and 37 articles in scholarly journals.