RADFORD — Radford University anthropology professor Cliff Boyd is a recipient of the 2008 Virginia Outstanding Faculty Awards, the Commonwealth’s highest honor for educators at Virginia’s colleges and universities.

Boyd was among the 12 recipients named Monday by the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia for “excellence for teaching, research, knowledge integration and public service.” The honors are administered by SCHEV and funded by a grant from the Dominion Foundation. This year’s awards mark the 22nd anniversary of the program.

“I am grateful for this recognition by SCHEV for my teaching because it brings recognition not only to me but to Radford University and the host of other excellent RU teachers I have come to know and respect over the years,” Boyd said. “This award highlights the strength and quality of the RU anthropology program.

All four tenured anthropology faculty have won university awards for excellence in teaching and creative scholarship. I am very proud to be associated with such wonderful colleagues in my discipline.”

Boyd’s wife, Donna, a fellow anthropology professor at RU, won a SCHEV Outstanding Faculty Award in 2006.

Boyd, the co-director of RU’s Forensic Science Institute, emphasizes experiential learning in his classroom and provides students with direct participation in the field, laboratory, classroom and in his own research. He routinely engages students in intensive summer archaeological field schools across the Commonwealth and supervises their internships with federal and state agencies. Boyd provides RU students an opportunity to work with professional archaeologists on a variety of field and laboratory projects.

“Dr. Boyd is a personal and professional treasure within the state of Virginia and throughout the southeastern United States,” said Jeff Irwin, a former student of Boyd who works as an archaeologist at Fort Bragg, N.C.

In July, Boyd will supervise a group of RU students in an archaeological and geophysical survey at Guadalcanal in an attempt to locate remains of members of the US Marine Goettge Patrol killed during the August 1942 Battle for Guadalcanal.

“Truly outstanding teachers reveal themselves in an untiring repetition of very small acts remembering a student’s question and treating it as vital, copying an article so a student can read more about a subject, bringing in an artifact that might help explain an idea, responding with genuine joy when students reveal what they know,” Department of Sociology and Anthropology chair Paula Brush said. “Cliff Boyd is that kind of teacher. He loves to teach, he loves archaeology and he wants students to learn.”

Boyd was named “Professional Archaeologist of the Year” by the Archaeological Society of Virginia in 1998 and received the Radford University Foundation Award for Creative Scholarship in 1999.  He is a recognized forensic archaeologist and serves as an adjunct member of the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Western District.

“Dr. Cliff Boyd is most deserving of a 2007 Outstanding Faculty Award,” said President Penelope W. Kyle.  “Throughout his distinguished career at Radford University, he has been known as a skilled and caring teacher who engages his students in archaeology by (quite literally!) requiring that they get their hands dirty alongside him in the field.  Dr. Boyd's students do archaeology; they never merely study archaeology.  Indeed, one of his colleagues has described the atmosphere at archeological digs Dr. Boyd supervises as 'magic' because of the students' excitement and wonder at discovery and the sense of teamwork and camaraderie that Dr. Boyd inspires.”

Boyd is the ninth RU faculty member, including his wife, who has won a SCHEV Outstanding Faculty Award. Other previous RU winners are: Grace Toney Edwards (English) and Dr. Steven Pontius (geography), 1990; Dr. Leonor Ulloa (foreign languages and literatures), 1993; Dr. Franklin Jones (physical science), 1996; Dr. Chester “Skip” Watts (geology), 1998; Dr. Robert Whisonant (geology), 2000; Mr. Mark Camphouse (music), 2002.