Timothy Sweet, professor of English in West Virginia University’s Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, has won the 2006 Eberly College’s James and Arthur Gabriel/Gabriel Brothers Faculty Award.

The $1,500 award will support Sweet’s faculty activities, and was established by James and Arthur Gabriel, founding partners of Gabriel Brothers Inc., a Morgantown-based discount clothing business.

The Gabriels, both of whom earned WVU degrees, created the prize to encourage, support and reward faculty endeavorsespecially teachingthat focus on America and American society and culture.

Sweet joined the WVU faculty in 1990 after earning his doctorate from the University of Minnesota. His specializations include 17th to 19th century American studies, literature and the environment, literature and photography, and Native American literature.

He is a Benedum Distinguished Scholar and has twice been named a WVU Arts and Sciences Outstanding Researcher. He has also been awarded the English Department’s Bordinat Award three times for his scholarly articles.

Sweet is the author of two books on early American cultureTraces of War: Poetry, Photography and the Crisis of the Union,published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1990, andAmerican Georgics: Economy and Environment in Early American Literature,published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2002.

The award will be presented at the Eberly College Weekend of Honors Ceremony at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, April 22, in the Mountainlair ballrooms.