The Wayne State University Board of Governors will present five distinguished professors with Faculty Recognition Awards on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 during its meeting at the McGregor Memorial Conference Center on campus. Each awardee will receive a citation, an engraved plaque and an award of $2,500 as part of their award.

The recipients include Dr. Ronald Aronson, distinguished professor of Humanities in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies; Dr. Robert Bruner, professor of Mathematics; Dr. Richard Grusin, professor of English; Dr. Stephen Krawetz, professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology; and Dr. Evgeny Rivin, professor of Mechanical Engineering.

Ronald Aronson, of Huntington Woods, is the author of Camus and Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that Ended It. Aronson received his bachelor's degree at Wayne State University and a master's and Ph.D from Brandeis University. Aronson has taught at Wayne State University since 1968, first at Monteith College, and since 1978 in the CULMA's Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. In recognition of his scholarly career and political contributions to South Africa, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa, in 2002. In 2004, the Wayne State University Board of Governors appointed Aronson Distinguished Professor of Humanities, the highest honor conferred on faculty members. He is a past president of its Academy of Scholars, the highest honor bestowed by his colleagues.

Robert Bruner, will be honored for his text Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society Number 785, The Connective K-Theory of Finite Groups, which forges a new link between distinct ways of measuring symmetry. He received his BA from Amherst College in 1972, Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude; and his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1977. He has been a regular visitor to the University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England; and The University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. He also spent time at
The Centre de Recerca Matematica, Barcelona, Spain, The Fields Institute, Toronto, Canada, CINVESTAV, Mexico City, and the Japan-American Mathematical Institute, Baltimore, MD, in addition to numerous visits to other institutions in the United
States and abroad.

Richard Grusin, of Beverly Hills, is professor and chair of the English department at Wayne State. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1983. He is the author of three books. The first, Transcendentalist Hermeneutics: Institutional Authority and the Higher Criticism of the Bible (Duke, 1991), concerns the influence of European biblical interpretation on the New England Transcendentalists. With Jay David Bolter he is the author of Remediation: Understanding New Media (MIT, 1999), which sketches out a genealogy of new media, beginning with the contradictory visual logics underlying contemporary digital media. Grusin's latest book, Culture, Technology, and the Creation of America's National Parks (Cambridge, 2004), focuses on the problematics of visual representation involved in the founding of America's national parks.

Stephen Krawetz, of Grosse Pointe, was recognized for his discovery and demonstration that human RNA is delivered from the sperm to the egg upon fertilization. Krawetz's work showed the viability of the sperm goes beyond factors like motility and quantity required for fertilization. Healthy sperm contributes to the viability of the zygote even after fertilization, with messenger RNAs turning on a crucial development switch and delivering critical functioning mechanisms to the egg.

Evgeny Rivin, of West Bloomfield, is being recognized for his text entitled Passive Vibration Isolation. In 1961, he received his PhD. from the Moscow Machine Tool Institute, and over the years he has received many honors including: Charles Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Fellow, 1989-90; DeVlieg Awards for Research in Manufacturing 1984-85; 1985-86; 1986-87; 1987-88; Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing, 1991; Ford Powertrain Customer-Driven Quality Award, 1995; and an Excellence in Teaching Award, College of Engineering, 1996.

Wayne State University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 academic programs through 12 schools and colleges to more than 33,000 students in metropolitan Detroit.