Distinguished Research & Teaching Awards for Department of Art History professors Freiberg & Jones
Congratulations to Department of Art History professors Dr. Jack Freiberg and Dr. Lynn Jones, who received the 2015 Distinguished Research and Distinguished Teaching Awards at the College of Fine Arts Welcome & Awards Ceremony on August 14, 2015. This annual event is both an awards ceremony and a social gathering for faculty and staff in the six academic departments and the local museum of CFA: Art, Art Education, Art History, Dance, Interior Design, the Museum of Fine Arts, and Theatre. The Art History Department is proud to be the home of the recipients of both of this year’s distinguished awards for faculty, which are based on peer nominations and determined by a committee of Dean Peter Weishar and College faculty.
Jack Freiberg received the Distinguished Research Award. His second major monograph, Bramante’s Tempietto, The Roman Renaissance and the Spanish Crown, was published in November 2014 by Cambridge University Press. In it Freiberg investigates Bramante’s Tempietto, an architectural memorial to Saint Peter and the origins of the Roman Catholic Church, and the preeminent commission of the Spanish Catholic kings in papal Rome. Freiberg situates the Tempietto at the center of a coordinated program of the arts exalting Spain’s leadership in the quest for Christian hegemony. In recent years Freiberg also co-edited a significant anthology of art historical texts, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque: A Cat’s Cradle for Marilyn Aronberg Lavin (New York: Italica Press, 2009). As Art History Chair Adam Jolles writes:
These efforts signal not only Dr. Freiberg’s advanced research agenda and his recognition among peers within the discipline; they are a mark of his leadership within the field and of his rarified ability to establish a well-developed trajectory of sustained intellectual inquiry with which other scholars can engage.
LynnJones received the Distinguished Teaching Award. A specialist on Byzantine, Early Christian, and Medieval Islamic art and architecture, Dr. Jones is admired and appreciated by undergraduate and graduate students for her challenging and engaging teaching style and her dedicated mentorship. This is Dr. Jones’ second teaching award; she received the University Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2014. As one undergraduates writes, “I was always eager to get to class not only for the material I would learn but because Dr. Jones provided us the opportunity to learn in new ways.” Another explains, “No single person has contributed more to my career goals and life ambitions. Dr. Jones was, and still is, consistently available offering me academic advice and personal guidance.” Department Chair Adam Jolles adds:
Dr. Jones’s investment in teaching extends as well to her graduate students, at both the master’s and doctoral levels. She has cultivated in her doctoral students the drive to compete for national grants and to submit their work frequently to peer-reviewed conferences. This has led to their enjoying success. Bradley Hostetler will spend the next year completing his dissertation at Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard University-directed research institution in Washington, D.C., that owns the finest Byzantine library in North America. Sarah Simmons was awarded a five-year Legacy Grant from the FSU Graduate School. And Christopher Timm has been awarded the Tousimis Prize for the best graduate presentation at the 2015 Byzantine Studies Conference.