John Edwards, an assistant professor of wildlife and fisheries resources at West Virginia University, has received the Samuel Faculty Excellence Award. The $1,000 award is presented to an educator in WVU s Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences who has demonstrated outstanding performance in the areas of teaching, research, and service.

John is one of our most productive researchers, has an excellent teaching record, and is committed to improving wildlife management in West Virginia and surrounding states,said Joe McNeel, director of the Davis Colleges Division of Forestry.But perhaps the most important reason that John received the Samuel Faculty Excellence Award was his innovative approach to both education and research.

He, along with his colleague Jim Anderson, conceived, developed and taught the new `Traditions of Huntingcourse that has received national recognition,McNeel said.John also developed a seven-state cooperative through funding from the Mellon Foundation to create a focused regional research program to evaluate and hopefully resolve the ruffed grouse decline in the eastern United States. It is the innovative and productive attitude carried by John that embodies the meaning of the Samuel Faculty Excellence Award.

The award was created to honor Davis College Professor Emeritus David Samuel, who devoted more than 30 years of service to the wildlife and fisheries resources program at WVU . Since his retirement in 1998, Samuel has donated an extensive wildlife collection to the Division of Forestry, on display at the Westvaco Natural Resources Center in the WVU Forest. His mother, Mary Grace, established the Mary Grace Samuel Endowment Fund for support of the Student Chapter of the Wildlife Society at WVU .

The Samuel Award was established though the WVU Foundation, a private non-profit corporation that generates, receives and administers private gifts for the benefit of West Virginia University.