Awards

09 April 2003

Kathleen McCarthy
The American Philological Society has named Kathleen McCarthy, professor of classics and comparative literature, as winner of this year’s Goodwin Award of Merit. The award recognizes the excellence of a recently published book about the Graeco-Roman world. It is the only, and therefore the most important, recognition for classical scholarship in book form.

McCarthy was honored for Slaves, Masters and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy. In that book, she uses works by Plautus — a playwright working during the turn of the third century to the second century BCE — to investigate how individuals of all strata of Roman society viewed themselves in relation to slaves and to the current power structure.

Other members of the classics department to have received the Goodwin Award are Donald Mastronarde (1997) and Professor Emeritus K.W. Pritchett (1976).

Clayton Radke
The American Chemical Society has named Professor of Chemical Engineering Clayton Radke as winner of its 2003 national award in colloid chemistry. Sponsored by Procter & Gamble, the award carries a $5,000 prize. The award was presented March 25 during the society’s annual meeting, in New Orleans.

Radke’s many previous honors include a College of Chemistry Teaching Award, the Donald Sterling Noyce Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the campus Distinguished Teaching Award.

Ron Takaki
Professor of Asian American Studies Ron Takaki accepted the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association’s annual Fred Cody Award on Thursday, April 3, in a ceremony at the San Francisco Main Library.

Takaki was honored for lifetime literary achievement and service to the community. A member of the ethnic studies faculty for 30 years, he is the author of 11 books, among them Strangers From a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans and A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America.

“This award has special meaning for me and also for the Bay Area,” Takaki says. “I was born, politically and intellectually. at UC Berkeley. After I entered the history Ph.D. program at Berkeley in 1961, I was stirred by the moral vision of Martin Luther King and, like many students, joined the civil rights movement.” Takaki wrote his dissertation on slavery.

In 1984, he helped found the campus’s doctoral program in ethnic studies, the first of its kind in the country. He was also instrumental in establishing the American Cultures requirement.

The award is named in honor and memory of Fred Cody, founder and proprietor of Cody’s Books, to honor literary figures for their contributions to northern California.