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Chico State

Five Faculty Receive Professional Achievement Honors

Kendall Hall with spring flowers in the foreground
Jason Halley / University Photographer

An early morning view of the Kendall Hall on Friday, March 27, 2020 in Chico, Calif. (Jason Halley/University Photographer/CSU, Chico)

By Savannah Anderson (English, ’19)

Five Chico State faculty members are being celebrated this week as recipients of the University’s Professional Achievement Honors, which recognize exemplary teacher-scholar achievement on our campus.

This year’s Professional Achievement Honors recipients, as selected by the University’s Faculty Recognition and Support Committee, are:

Qingzhong MaASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE AND MARKETING

Portrait of Qingzhong Ma

Ma is a scholar in finance and marketing with an emphasis on several subject areas, including corporate finance, investments, market efficiency, and financial modeling. He has published a number of articles in prominent finance journals since joining Chico State in 2015, such as Review of Economics & Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Journal of Banking and Finance. He currently serves as an ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Banking and Finance and Journal of Behavioral Finance, in addition to five other journals. Ma has been involved with the Southwest Finance Association’s conference in 2019 and 2020 and has presented his research in conferences both nationally and internationally. On campus, Ma is an advisor and mentor to seven students, three of whom are PhD candidates. His investment in his students extends into his current position as director of the Center for Excellence in Finance, as well as his seat on three on-campus scholarship award committees.


Rachel MiddlemanASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ART AND ART HISTORY

Portrait of Rachel Middleman

Middleman is a scholar in art history with an extensive list of published articles, essays, book chapters, reviews, interviews, and invitational conference papers, lectures, and panels. She has essays published in Art Journal and Woman’s Art Journal as well as several museum and exhibition reviews, and her most recent presentations were in relation to the College Art Association Conference in New York and at the Feminist Art History Conference at American University in Washington, DC. Additionally, Middleman authored the book Radical Eroticism: Women, Art, and Sex in the 1960s, published in 2018, to which she received a Smithsonian Institution Postdoctoral Fellowship of $19,150 to assist the book’s completion. She was also the recipient of Chico State’s Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity grant for three consecutive years, the most recent being in 2019. Middleman’s professional achievements echo her ongoing commitment to illuminate unrecognized and marginalized artists. Presently, she serves as chair for the Visiting Artists Committee, continuously bringing rays of illumination to the campus in both her teaching and professional influence.


Baohui Song – PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Portrait of Baohui Song

Song’s focal area of study is agriculture economics. He has authored and peer-reviewed journal articles in both English and Chinese surrounding various topics in agriculture, two of which were published in the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics. Song currently serves as chair of the China section of the Agriculture & Applied Economics Association (AAEA), a chapter dedicated to collaborating with AAEA members around the world on issues related to agriculture in China. He also hosted 15 visiting scholars from China, 15 professors and PhD candidates from eight different universities, and 3 professors from Chinese universities, all ranging in visits from 6 months to 1 year. Song is currently a co-PI on two funded research projects surrounding California agriculture in association with Agricultural Research Institute, one receiving a research fund of $196,000 and the other $145,651. He continuously sparks ongoing conversations and research in his field and is a bridge between two corners of the world in agricultural academia and fellowship.


Daniel VeidlingerASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPARATIVE RELIGION AND HUMANITIES

Portrait of Daniel Veidlinger

Veidlinger’s expertise in South and Southeastern Asian religions and their relationship to the digital world is mirrored in his knowledge and professional influence—including his ability to speak a remarkable total of eight languages, counting English, Sanskrit, Pali, Hebrew, Thai, Yuan, French, and German. He presently serves as an editor for both The Database of Religious History and Oxford Bibliographies Online: Buddhism. He has published four books since 2006, the most recent being Digital Humanities and Buddhism: An Introduction, published in 2019. His other publications throughout his career include chapters, journal articles, book reviews, and various Oxford Encyclopedia entries and chapters. In addition, Veidlinger also has an extensive list of presentations, including his most recent presentations given at the Mangalam Center for Buddhist Studies in Berkeley; The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; and the International Conference on the Evolution of Religion in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Most recently, he was the recipient of CSU, Chico’s Research Scholarly and Creative Activities Award in 2019.


Suzanne Zivnuska PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT

Portrait of Suzanne Zivnuska

Zivnuska currently holds the position of chair for the Department of Management and has been a professor at Chico State since 2009. In 2019, Suzanne was the recipient of the College of Business’s Outstanding Research Contribution Award and she has been a recipient of the College of Business Research Stipend since 2012. Zivnuska presently serves as an ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. In recent years, she has published a number of journal articles, including multiple articles published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Computers in Human Behavior, Journal of Social Psychology, and Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. She has two forthcoming publications in Computers in Human Behavior and Journal of Social Psychology, as well as one in Human Performance as a co-author. Zivnuska is currently involved with the Academy of Management’s organizational behavior division and the Western Academy of Management. Throughout her career, she has practiced her expertise by serving as a professional business consultant for local businesses, government agencies, and major corporations.