Date: Apr 21, 2009

Five Hofstra Faculty Win 2008-2009 Teacher of the Year Honors

Will be recognized at Hofstra Gala, Spring Commencement

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY – Five Hofstra University faculty have been voted 2008-2009 Teachers of the Year by Hofstra students and will be honored at the May 7, 2009 Hofstra Gala as well as at the May 17, 2009 Undergraduate/Graduate Commencement Exercises, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Herman A. Berliner announced.

The recipients of the individual School/College Teacher of the Year Awards are Robert Leonard, professor and chair, Comparative Literature and Language, Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Mary Anne Trasciatti, associate professor and chair, Speech Communication, Rhetoric, and Performance Studies, School of Communication; Ahmet Karagozoglu, associate professor, Finance, Frank G. Zarb School of Business; Bruce Torff, professor, Curriculum and Teaching, School of Education, Health and Human Services; and Mitchell Gans, professor of law, Hofstra School of Law.

Teachers of the Year are selected by current, graduating students in each school. “What makes Teacher of the Year such a singular honor is that for the faculty member to be selected, that person needs to ranked as a top faculty member by graduating students over a three-year to five-year period of time,” said Provost Berliner.
 
The bios for each of the Teachers of the Year follow:

Robert Leonard, Professor and Chair, Comparative Literature and Language
Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Robert Leonard, Ph.D. is a professor of Linguistics specializing in Forensic Linguistics as applied to U.S. law. He directs the Linguistics Program and the Forensic Linguistics Internships. A Fulbright Fellow for his Ph.D. research, he received his B.A. from Columbia College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia Graduate School, where he was a Faculty Fellow. He is lead researcher at Robert Leonard Associates, a consulting firm.

Dr. Leonard’s linguistic specialty of Forensic Linguistics applies the science of linguistic investigation to issues of U.S. law. Forensic Linguistics augments legal analysis by applying rigorous, scientifically accepted principles of analysis to legal evidence like contracts, confessions, and recorded speech. In the U.S. legal system, language is key. At Hofstra, the study of legal linguistics is centered at the Forensic Linguistics Project, which Dr. Leonard directs.

Dr. Leonard has taught at Columbia and was Vice President of Friends World College and for several years Director of their East African Center, teaching undergraduates and doing fieldwork among the Akamba and Swahili peoples. At Hofstra he continues his connection with African studies as Professor of Swahili, the language he studied for his doctoral dissertation, and as Deputy Director of the Africa Network. Leonard has served as consultant on language and intercultural matters to clients that include The New Yorker Magazine, law firms, advertising agencies, television networks, police and government agencies.

Mary Anne Trasciatti, Associate Professor and Chair, Speech Communication, Rhetoric, and Performance Studies
School of Communication

Mary Anne Trasciatti, Ph.D., teaches courses in rhetorical theory, public address, persuasion, political communication, and popular culture. Her research concerns the rhetoric of early 20th century immigrant and labor activists, especially in the Italian-American community.

She is co-editor (with Jerome Delamater) of “Representing Sacco and Vanzetti”, an interdisciplinary volume of essays on the cultural and political legacy of the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and is currently completing a manuscript on discourses of citizenship among Americans and Italians in the United States during World War I and the 1920s. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Ahmet Karagozoglu, Associate Professor, Finance
Frank G. Zarb School of Business

Ahmet Karagozoglu, Ph.D., academic director of the Martin G. Greenberg Trading Room at Hofstra, received a B.S. in industrial engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. He received an M.B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. He earned an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in finance at Baruch College of The City University of New York, where he received the Oscar Lasdon Best Dissertation Award for the best dissertation.

Prior to coming to Hofstra, Dr. Karagozoglu taught full time at Baruch College at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Recently he taught an international financial management course in the Hofstra-Erasmus summer program at Erasmus University of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Dr. Karagozoglu received the Frank G. Zarb School of Business Dean's Research Award for 2000. His primary research interests are in the areas of futures markets, option pricing, market microstructure, interest rate derivatives and risk management. His work has been published in the Journal of Futures Markets, the Financial Review and the Journal of Fixed Income. He has presented papers at annual conferences of the Financial Management Association, the Eastern Finance Association, the Midwest Finance Association and the International Association of Financial Engineers. He has also presented his research at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and was invited to participate in the Chicago Board of Trade Research Seminar.

Dr. Karagozoglu is a member of the American Finance Association, the Financial Management Association, the Eastern Finance Association, the Multinational Finance Society, the International Association of Financial Engineers and the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society.

Bruce Torff, Professor, Curriculum and Teaching
School of Education, Health and Human Services

Bruce Torff, EDD, an educational psychologist, is a professor of Curriculum and Teaching. He has published numerous articles and books on topics including teachers' beliefs and attitudes (especially concerning critical-thinking activities and professional-development initiatives), expertise in teaching, intelligence, and musical cognition. He earned a doctorate and two master's degrees at Harvard University, where he worked with Howard Gardner, and held a postdoctoral appointment at Yale University in collaboration with Robert J. Sternberg.

At Hofstra, Torff teaches courses in educational psychology and human development and serves as Program Director of the Doctoral Program in Learning and Teaching. He remains active as a presenter of professional-development workshops for educators. Torff is also a pianist and songwriter.

Mitchell Gans, Professor of Law
Hofstra School of Law

Mitchell Gans, JD, is a Professor of Law at Hofstra. Before joining the law school faculty, he had been an associate in the Tax and Trust and Estates Departments at the New York City law firm of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett and law clerk to Associate Judge Jacob D. Fuchsberg, New York State Court of Appeals. He is an Academic Fellow at the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law.

Professor Gans is a leading scholar in the estate-and-gift tax area. On behalf of the NYU School of Law, he recently taught an eight-week course on valuation methodology by satellite television to IRS attorneys throughout the country. He continues to provide lectures for the IRS on transfer- and income-tax issues. He is a frequent lecturer for ALI-ABA, NYU, the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, the ABA and other groups. Professor Gans has published articles in the Emory Law Journal, Notre Dame Law Review, Virginia Tax Review, Florida Tax Review and Tax Notes, among others. He just completed a book on the ethical obligations the Treasury imposes on tax practitioners. He received his BBA and his JD from Hofstra.

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students can choose from more than 145 undergraduate and 160 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business; engineering; communication; education, health and human services;  and honors studies, as well as a School of Law. With a student-faculty ratio of 14-to-1, our professors teach small classes averaging 22 students that emphasize interaction, critical thinking and analysis. Hofstra offers a faculty whose highest priority is teaching excellence.