Humanities Prof Earns Teaching Award

While a teacher of the French language, Heidi Bostic’s teaching award relates more to her research.

Heidi Bostic’s research interests have resulted in an award for teaching. The assistant professor of French at Michigan Tech earned a national teaching award from the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies.

While a teacher of French language, Bostic also teaches 18th century literature and does research in the area of gender theory.

Her award-winning course description, for example, is “Gender and Society in Eighteenth Century France.”

“We look at ways in which gender influenced the period’s cultural practices,” she said. “Eighteenth century thinkers tended to believe that women lacked reason but had extreme sensibility, yet her place was in the home. This created a tension with that century’s proclamations of universal liberty and equality.”

Bostic’s course is part of a seminar with the main theme of “individual and society.”

“We also study the roles of women and men during the French revolution, using literary texts,” she said. “We read texts by women and about women. In general, gender theory means looking at the situation of women in the world. We investigate categories we take for granted, but that may turn out to have a gender bias.

“As a very basic example, a study of a major research university found that more lab space went to men than women. The situation was corrected, but the point is that this does happen.”

Plant Biotech Center Names Tsai Acting Director

Chung-Jui Tsai has been named the acting director of Michigan Tech’s Plant Biotechnology Research Center. She is an associate professor of forest resources and environmental science.

Tsai is noted for her work in molecular physiology, functional genomics, metabolic profiling and lignin biosynthesis. Lignin must be removed from wood as part of the paper-making process. Tsai has worked to develop low-lignin trees, which would be less expensive to pulp and would also reduce the pollution associated with the pulp and paper industry.

She has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on 10 grants totaling $3.15 million, including a $2 million award from the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor Fund.

She has recently been invited to be a member of the International Poplar Genome Steering Committee, a group that assists in coordinating the Department of Energy’s poplar genome sequencing effort with research worldwide. She has published widely, including six book chapters, and is co-inventor on three patents. She teaches courses and supervises graduate students in the area of plant biotechnology.

Tsai earned BS and MS degrees in Agriculture from National Taiwan University before coming to Michigan Tech for her PhD in Forest Science. In 1991 she became a research associate and held several research and faculty positions until her appointment as an associate professor in 2002.