March 2, 2011
Dr. Ed Snyder, chair of the Institute of Environmental and Physical Sciences and professor of environmental studies at Shepherd University, was named the West Virginia Professor of the Year by the Faculty Merit Foundation of West Virginia at a ceremony held at the state Culture Center in Charleston on March 1. (Dr. Ed Snyder is photographed with his wife Nancy Snyder, left, and President Suzanne Shipley at the Professor of the Year ceremony.)
Dr. Snyder, a member of Shepherd’s faculty since 1986, led efforts to develop the environmental studies program at Shepherd in 1994 and expand the program to a major in 1997.
He has served on the Shepherd University Honors Program committee since its inception in 1991 and has served as a faculty member with the Washington Gateway Academy, Shepherd’s weeklong pre-college summer program for middle schoolers, since 1991.
Dr. Snyder serves as chair of the West Virginia Environmental Quality Board, which examines issues associated with statewide water quality.
Each year, the Faculty Merit Foundation honors an outstanding faculty member at a West Virginia college or university. The award winner receives a $10,000 cash prize. Smaller awards are given to four other finalists.
United Bank provides financial support for the Professor of the Year Award. The Faculty Merit Foundation is affiliated with the West Virginia Humanities Council.
Dr. Snyder joins four other Shepherd faculty members who have been honored by the Faculty Merit Foundation–Dr. Sylvia Shurbutt and Dr. Linda Tate, who were winners of the Outstanding Professor of the Year award in 2006 and 2004, and Dr. Scott Beard and Dr. Jerry Thomas, finalists in 2009 and 2007.