Cowan receives Steve Gould Award
Associate professor of English Laura Cowan was named the winner of the University of Maine’s 2018 Steve Gould Award.
The annual award is presented to members of the UMaine community who have, by their conduct, demonstrated superior qualities of unselfishness and compassion in the course of serving UMaine and its ideals. It was created in 1981 by the family and friends of Steve Gould in memory of “a man of honest and passionate concern for others.”
The Gould Award was presented April 2 at the Employee Recognition and Awards Luncheon.
Nominators note than in her three decades as a member of the UMaine community, Cowan has been a leader, role model and mentor supporting women colleagues, students and staff, and committed to effecting positive change.
As then chair of the Faculty Senate Environment Committee and as AFUM delegate, Cowan had a crucial role in helping establish UMaine’s Stopping the Tenure Clock initiative for faculty who are going through childbirth, child rearing, adoption or other exceptional life circumstances. She also is cited as being instrumental in calling for a gender equity study of UMaine faculty salaries.
As a former English Department chair and graduate coordinator, Cowan focused on student, faculty and staff success, including mentorship programs for junior faculty. She also is cited for her leadership in Interdisciplinary Studies.
“At the foundation of Environmental Studies is egalitarian reverence for all living things,” wrote one of her nominators. “Thus defined, environmentalism informs everything Cowan does. For professor Cowan, the bedrock of kindness and compassion is respect for students, for staff, for colleagues and for everyone around her. She recognizes and respects diversity and the intrinsic worth and dignity of every human being, including those who are different, those who are invisible, those who are oppressed and those who are marginalized.”
Cowan’s research focuses on literature and the environment, modernism and feminism. Her latest book is on feminist writer Rebecca West; her next volume will be on Rachel Carson.
Colleagues noted Cowan’s leadership in the National Poetry Foundation, including as principal investigator on a Maine Academic Prominence Initiative grant, and as editor of its signature journal Paideuma.
In addition, Cowan’s community engagement is extensive — from co-creating a service learning course and teaching senior college classes to being active in Penobscot Theatre and participating on other local, national and international committees and boards.
As another nominator noted, Cowan “never stops thinking about and finding inventive ways to work for the students and the communities the university services.”