Jason Lorgan is the recipient of the National Association of College Stores’ Aspen Award, given annually to a leader in collegiate retailing who has raised the level of professional practice in the industry and served as a mentor to staff and colleagues.

Lorgan served as director of UC Davis Stores prior to his promotion three years ago to executive director of Campus Recreation, Memorial Union and UC Davis Stores.

“Jason Lorgan has never hesitated to upend the conventional wisdom of the collegiate retailing industry, often seeking out new solutions for his store that no other college store had tried — up to that point, anyway,” the association stated in a news release.

For example, with Lorgan as the director, UC Davis Stores:

• Partnered with Amazon to set up a university-branded online storefront. Doing this “was considered controversial by most in the industry” at the time, said Steve Alb, outgoing president of the National Association of College Stores, who presented the Aspen Award at the association’s Campus Market Expo, or CAMEX, held this year in San Antonio.
• Implemented the use of price-comparison software to demonstrate competitive and transparent textbook pricing to students. 
• Pioneered the “inclusive access” model for digital delivery of course materials — a model now being used by hundreds of college stores — whereby all students in a particular class have free access to the materials by the first day of class. UC Davis Inclusive Access provides the materials (which instructors can adapt to their own needs) one to two weeks in advance of the first class meeting, then gives students a minimum of 10 days from the first day of the term to cancel and pay nothing, say, if they drop the course.

UC Davis Stores earned the 2016 Innovation Achievement Award from the National Association of College Stores Foundation in 2016, for the Inclusive Access program, and won the same award in 2014 for SmartStart, whereby staff members serve as personal textbook shoppers. The award is given every other year, so UC Davis Stores scored back-to-back wins — something no other campus bookstore operation had ever done.

The association lauded Lorgan for always being more than willing to share with other campus stores how those new solutions worked, or didn’t, and in so doing has helped countless stores move forward with new ideas.

“One of his staff members summed it up well by saying Jason is ‘well-known in the industry as a leader, an innovator, a visionary and sometimes a rebel,’” Alb said.  

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Newly recognized as fellows among their peers:

• Ricardo Castro, associate professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering — American Ceramic Society, which concerns itself with the scientific side of ceramics. In his research, he is particularly interested in the behavior of nanoceramics in extreme environments, such as high temperatures and nuclear radiation.
• Jesús De Loera, professor, Department of Mathematics — Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, which recognized him for outstanding service to the mathematics community and exemplary research, including contributions to discrete geometry and optimization, polynomial algebra, and mathematical software.
• Veronika Hubeny, professor, Department of Physics — International Society for General Relativity and Gravitation. She is a theoretical physicist and a founding member of the UC Davis Center for Quantum Mathematics and Physics or QMAP. Her research interests lie mainly in the areas of string theory and quantum gravity.

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Six members of the UC Davis academic advising community recently received awards from the Pacific Region of NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising. The Pacific Region comprises California, Hawaii, Nevada, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. 

The UC Davis honorees and their awards and categories:

• Nancy Davis, undergraduate student advisor, College of Engineering — Excellence in Advising award, advisor primary role
• Daniela De La Cruz Telles, student affairs advisor, Social Sciences Yellow Cluster, College of Letters and Science — Excellence in Advising award, new advisor
• Letia Graening, assistant director, international advising, dean’s office, College of Letters and Science — Excellence in Advising award, advising equity champion
• Ned Spang, assistant professor, Department of Food Science and Technology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences — Excellence in Advising award, faculty advisor
• Donna Vivar, advising director, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences — Excellence in Advising award, advising administrator
• Danielle Huddlestun, graduate and undergraduate advisor, Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences — certificate of merit, advisor primary role 

The UC Davis advising community began receiving regional and global recognition from NACADA in 2016 after the implementation of an aligned campus advising awards program.

Four of this year’s regional honorees received campus awards: Davis as outstanding staff advisor, De La Cruz Telles as outstanding new advisor, Graening as outstanding campus collaborator and Vivar as outstanding advising administrator. Other campus awards went to:

• Siobhan Brady, assistant professor, Department of Plant Biology and Genome Center, College of Biological Sciences — outstanding faculty advisor
• Karina Castillo, student employee, dean’s office, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences — outstanding peer advisor

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Two faculty members of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, a doctoral candidate in the department and a recent Ph.D. graduate of the department recently received awards from the Entomological Society of America’s Pacific Branch, encompassing 11 western states, U.S. territories and parts of Canada and Mexico.

• Joanna Chiu, associate professor — Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology Award
• Neal Williams, professor — Plant-Insect Ecosystems Award
• Brendon Boudinot, doctoral candidate and ant specialist who studies with Professor Phil Ward — John Henry Comstock Graduate Student Award
• Jessica Gillung, who received her doctorate in December (major advisor Lynn Kimsey) and joined the Bryan Danforth Lab at Cornell University in January — Early career award

Read more about the recipients in this article by Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist, Department of Entomology and Nematology.

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Dateline UC Davis welcomes news of faculty and staff awards, for publication in Laurels. Send information to dateline@ucdavis.edu.

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