Trustees'
Distinguished Professors
John
W. Fraas
Trustees' Professor and Professor of Business Administration
Elizabeth
Pastor
Trustees' Professor and Professor of Music
Jane M. Piirto
Trustees' Professor and Professor of Education
Daniel Lehman
Trustees’ Professor and Professor of English
David
A. deSilva
Trustees' Professor and Professor of New Testament and Greek
John
W. Fraas
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 View Selected Works
by John Fraas |
Trustees' Professor and Professor of Business Administration
A 1970 graduate of Ashland College, Fraas earned his master of arts
degree in economics from the University of Toledo in 1972 and a
Ph.D. from the University of Akron in 1978. His major fields of
study were economic education and educational statistics.
After joining the Ashland University faculty in 1972 as instructor of economics, Fraas was promoted to assistant professor of economics in 1974, associate professor of economics in 1978, and full professor of economics in 1981. He also served in various administrative positions including Director of Economic Education In-Service Programs, Director of Research for The Gill Center for Business and Economic Education, Chairman of the Economics Department, and Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities.
One of the most popular faculty members on campus, Fraas has received numerous awards. In 1986, Fraas was named the University's first Trustees' Professor. He was
also the first recipient of the Dr. Raymond Bixler Award, which is given to an alumnus who has achieved distinction in the field of education. In 2001, he was the first recipient of The Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) International Teaching Excellence Award. His students selected him as the Ellis Award recipient eight times and an AU Mentor Award four times.
Fraas has been an active
researcher and author. He has authored more than 30 journal articles,
50 national and regional conference presentations, and a number
of books, including a textbook titled "Basic Concepts in Educational
Research."
Fraas is a very active member of the faculty. He served as chair
of the Faculty Welfare Committee for the better part of two decades.
During his tenure as chair, faculty compensation was significantly
enhanced through a program he proposed and designed. He also served
numerous years as of the Professional Responsibility Committee and
the Budget Committee.
Elizabeth Pastor
Trustees' Professor and Professor of Music
Pastor
is a scholarship graduate of Boston's Longy School of Music, where
she received her Artist's Diploma at the age of 18. She studied
piano with Boris Goldovsky, Carl Friedberg, Beryl Rubinstein and
Arthur Loesser, and composition with Eunice Kettering and Charles
Rychlik.
Pastor made her debut in Town Hall, New York, and has made solo
appearances with leading orchestras throughout the country, including
the Cleveland Orchestra, the NBC Symphony, the Boston Pops and various
other Ohio orchestras including Mansfield, Wooster and Ashland.
She has performed at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Garnder Museum
in Boston, the Akron Art Institute and Interlochen Music campus
and many cities throughout Ohio and the Midwest, in both solo recitals
as well as a participant in many chamber music concerts. She has
been a pianist with the famed Cleveland Quartet, performed all of
the Beethoven Cello-Piano Sonatas with Ernest Silberstein, and made
numerous radio and television appearances.
Chairman of the Music Department from 1983 to 1987, Pastor has served
on a number of University faculty committees and is a multiple-year
recipient of AU's Mentor Award. She also is a member of The Cleveland
Institute of Music teaching roster.
In addition to her music career, Pastor has been the driving force
behind AU's Spectrum Series, which brings speakers and performers
to campus, and the Music Department's Guest Artist Series. A tireless
worker for the Ashland community, Pastor is founder of SAP (Society
for Ashland's Preservation) and has been a key figure in a number
of environmental projects.
In 1987, she was named the University's second Trustees' Professor,
an academic honor awarded by the Board of Trustees to a professor
who is recognized as an outstanding educator, performer and campus
leader.
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| View Selected Works
by Jane Piirto |
Trustees' Professor and Professor of Education
A faculty member at Ashland University since 1988, Jane Piirto directs
AU's Talent Development Education (TDE) program. Piirto teaches
graduate courses in the M.Ed., teaches qualitative research in the
Ed.D., and teaches undergraduates in educational psychology and
creativity. She is a consultant, teacher, and speaker throughout
the United States and abroad, and has been a teacher and school
administrator in Michigan, South Dakota, Ohio, and in New York City,
where she was the principal of the Hunter College Campus Schools.
Piirto has over a hundred publications of scholarly articles, poems,
short stories, and essays. She has published a novel, The Three
Week Trance Diet, which won the Carpenter Press First Novel Award.
Her scholarly books include Understanding Those Who Create (Gifted
Psychology Press) and Talented Children and Adults: Their Development
and Education (Merrill/Prentice Hall). Poems, stories, and essays
were collected in A Location in the Upper Peninsula (Sampo Publishing).
She has also published several chapbooks of poetry.
Piirto has received Individual Artist Fellowships in both poetry
and fiction from the Ohio Arts Council and is listed in the Directory
of American Poets and Fiction Writers. She is the recipient of a
Fulbright Hays grant for a study tour to Argentina, where she wrote
a cycle of poems.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Northern Michigan
University, a Master of Arts degree in English from Kent State University,
a Master of Education degree in counseling from South Dakota State
University, and a Ph.D. in educational administration and supervision
from Bowling Green State University.
She becomes the University's fourth Trustees' Professor, an academic
rank awarded by the Board of Trustees to a professor who is recognized
as an outstanding educator.
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| View Selected Works
by Daniel Lehman |
Trustees’ Professor and Professor of English
A
member of the English Department faculty since 1987, Lehman is an
authority in the area of literary nonfiction. He serves as co-editor
of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative and in 1997 published
a book “Matters of Fact: Reading Nonfiction Over the Edge.”
Lehman holds a bachelor of arts degree in English from Eastern Mennonite
University; a master of arts degree in English from Georgetown University,
specializing in contemporary American fiction; and a Ph.D. in English
from the Ohio State University, with emphases on nonfiction narrative,
contemporary literature, and critical and media theory.
Promoted to assistant professor in 1988, associate professor in
1993 and a full professor in 1998, Lehman received the Edward and
Louaine Taylor Teaching Award in 1998 and received the Academic
Mentor Award in 1994 and 1995. He received the Stanley J. Kahrl
Fellowship in Literary Manuscripts from Harvard University in 2000-01
to conduct research for his book, “John Reed and the Writing
of Revolution.” Lehman, who was previously awarded a summer
study grant and a study leave, was named a Fulbright Scholar to
South Africa for the 2004-2005 academic year.
Formerly an award-winning journalist, from 1989 to 1996 Lehman served
as adviser to AU’s student newspaper, The Collegian, directing
the staff to seven first-place finishes in the American Scholastic
Press Association competition.
In 2004, he was named the University’s fifth Trustees’
Professor, an academic honor awarded by the Board of Trustees to
a professor who is recognized as an outstanding educator, researcher
and campus leader.
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| View Selected Works
by David deSilva |
Trustees’ Professor and Professor of New Testament and Greek
A
member of the faculty of Biblical Studies at Ashland Theological
Seminary since 1995, deSilva has specialized in the fields of Second
Temple Judaism, the social and cultural environment of the first-century
Greco-Roman world, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Revelation
of John.
deSilva holds a bachelor of arts degree in English from Princeton
University; a master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological
Seminary, specializing in New Testament Studies; and a Ph.D. in
Religion from Emory University, with emphases on New Testament interpretation,
Roman history, and sociology of religion.
Promoted to associate professor in 1999 and a full professor in
2002, deSilva has published eleven academic books, including 4 Maccabees:
Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text (Brill, 2006), An
Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry
Formation (InterVarsity, 2004), Introducing the Apocrypha (Baker
Academic, 2000), Perseverance in Gratitude: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary
on the Epistle “to the Hebrews” (Eerdmans, 2000), and
The Hope of Glory: Honor Discourse and New Testament Interpretation
(Liturgical Press, 1999). He has also published over sixty articles
in refereed journals, collections of essays, and reference works.
He has taken leadership roles in the Society of Biblical Literature
as a member of several steering committees and founding program
chair of the Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity seminar. In 2001, deSilva
was elected to the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas. He received
an Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship to study in Tuebingen,
Germany, for the 2006-2007 academic year.
deSilva is an ordained elder in the Florida Conference of the United
Methodist Church, and has served congregations as an organist and
choir director since 1985. He has written extensively for adult
Christian education and spiritual formation resources.
In 2005, he was named the University’s sixth Trustees’
Professor, an academic honor awarded by the Board of Trustees to
a professor who is recognized as an outstanding educator, researcher
and campus leader.