Meritorious Faculty Award
The CNS Meritorious Faculty Award is presented annually to a faculty member who has demonstrated excellence in the areas of teaching and research. Award recipients exemplify the MSU commitment to the land-grant mission of teaching, research and outreach activities through their dedication to professional, community and MSU service.
Originally titled the Distinguished Faculty Award, this award was renamed in 1996. Nominations are submitted by CNS faculty, staff and alumni. The Board of Directors of the CNS Alumni Association selects the recipient and presents the award at the annual CNS Awards Convocation.
2008 Recipient
Aureal Cross
Professor Emeritus
Geological Sciences & Plant Biology
Professor Emeritus Aureal Cross joined the MSU faculty in 1961. He held appointments in the Department of Geological Sciences and Botany and Plant Biology for 25 years, and also served as the curator of the Fossil Plant Herbarium at MSU.
Cross received a BA in Geology from Coe College in 1939, an MA in Botany from the University of Cincinnati in 1941 and a PhD in Botany and Paleontology from the University of Cincinnati in 1943. After holding faculty positions at Notre Dame, Cincinnati and West Virginia University, Cross spent 8 years with the West Virginia Geological and Economic survey. He then spent 4 years with the Pan American Petroleum Corp. Research Center before coming to MSU.
Aureal taught an introductory level course (usually Earth History) almost every term or semester during his 25 years at Michigan State. He also thought it was important to teach all the advanced courses in paleobotany, palynology, and coal geology without assistants.
For more than five decades, Cross and his graduate students and colleagues have been exploring mostly the palynology, paleoecology, environments of deposition and biostratigraphy of the Devonian, Carboniferous, Cretaceous and Tertiary coal-bearing and black-shale sequences.
Aureal practiced what he preached in the basic training of his students, in the papers given at professional meetings (more than 100 abstracts), in the major book-length publications resulting from work in West Virginia, in field guides and in editorial projects of wide ranging significance. He was honored with numerous awards, including the AAPG Distinguished Lecturer Award in 1963, the Algebraically Section of the Botanical Society of America's Distinguished Service Award in 1985 and the Coal Geology Division of GSA's Distinguished Service Award in 1992. In 2005, the AAPG awarded him the Grover E. Murray Distinguished Educator Award.
While Cross retired in 1986, he continues to remain involved with the department and the university as well as with professional organizations and colleagues.
Past Recipients - CNS Meritorious Faculty award
| 1980 | Charles Sweeley | Biochemistry |
| 1981 | Leo Mericle | Botany & Plant Pathology |
| 1982 | Kyung Whan Kwun | Mathematics |
| 1983 | John Lockwood | Botany & Plant Pathology |
| 1984 | Fumio Matsumura | Pesticide Research Center |
| 1985 | Marvin Hensley | Zoology |
| 1986 | Alexander Tulinsky | Chemistry |
| 1987 | Everett Beneke | Botany & Plant Pathology |
| 1988 | Clarence Suelter | Biochemistry |
| 1989 | John Beaman | Botany & Plant Pathology |
| 1990 | Jerry Dodgson | Biochemistry |
| 1991 | James Hamilton | Chemistry |
| 1992 | Pamela Fraker | Biochemistry |
| 1993 | Howard Hagerman | Lyman Briggs School |
| 1994 | Hans Kende | Botany & Plant Pathology |
| 1995 | Emanuel Hackel | Zoology |
| 1996 | Jack Preiss | Biochemistry |
| 1997 | Glenda Lappan | Mathematics |
| 1998 | John E. Wilson | Biochemistry |
| 1999 | Julius Kovacs | Physics & Astronomy |
| 2000 | Robert Hausinger | Biochemistry/Microbiology |
| 2001 | Jerry Babcock | Chemistry |
| 2002 | Loren Snyder | Microbiology |
| 2003 | Jonathon Walton | Plant Biology |
| 2004 | Edwin Kashy | Physics & Astronomy |
| 2005 | G.J. (Mike) Karabatsos | Chemistry |
| 2006 | Jack Bass | Physics & Astronomy |
| George Bird | Entomology | |
| 2007 | Ralph Taggart | Plant Biology & Geological Sciences |
| 2008 | Aureal Cross | Geological Sciences & Plant Biology |
Download a Nomination Form (PDF) for this award.