[image1-right:resize-180w]The Southeastern Conference (SEC) has awarded Carol Tenopir (PhD '84), professor and director of the Center for Information and Communication Studies at the University of Tennessee (UT), with one of its first Faculty Achievement Awards.
The new SEC award program was created to honor professors from the SEC with outstanding records in teaching and scholarship. A faculty member in UT’s College of Communication and Information, Tenopir is a Chancellor’s Professor in the School of Information Sciences and director of the college's Center for Information and Communication Studies. She also serves as director of research for the college.
In presenting the awards, the SEC becomes the only Division I conference within the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to recognize university faculty for their achievements outside of the athletic realm.
Honorees from each university receive a $5,000 honorarium and become their university’s nominee for the SEC Professor of the Year Award, to be presented at the annual SEC Spring Banquet in May.
SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said, “These winners are exceptional and have inspired their students and colleagues through a deep commitment to teaching and research in their chosen fields. The SEC is privileged to honor the men and women who motivate and encourage our students to be the best they can be.”
Tenopir’s teaching and research focus on information access and retrieval, electronic publishing, the information industry, online resources, and the impact of technology on reference librarians and scientists. She was one of the first scholars to study full-text journal article retrieval. She has a doctorate from the University of Illinois, a master’s degree from California State University, and a bachelor’s degree from Whittier College.
She has authored five books, published more than 200 journal articles, and for nearly thirty years has penned the “Online Databases” column for Library Journal.
To read more about Tenopir, visit the SEC Digital Network.
The new award program is part of the SEC’s non-athletically related academic initiatives through the SEC Academic Consortium.