2010 Alumni Achievement Awards

Knox celebrated the 173rd anniversary of its founding with the presentation of Alumni Achievement Awards at the 2010 Founders Day Convocation on Friday, February 19, in the Muelder Room, Seymour Library.

At the celebration, three alumni were awarded 2010 Alumni Achievement Awards -- Alexander W. Kuo '61, James L. Hallock '69, and Keith E. Maskus '76. Matthew L. Berg '00 was the sixth recipient of the Young Alumni Achievement Award.

Alexander W. Kuo '61
Listen to the Award Presentation
by Robin Metz, Philip Sidney Post Professor of English

Writer, photographer, and professor Alexander W. Kuo has published more than 350 poems, short stories, photographs, and essays in magazines, newspapers, and anthologies around the world and is the author of eight highly-acclaimed books. In 1971, his collection The Window Tree became the first volume of poetry published by an Asian American in the United States, and in 2002, he won the American Book Award for Lipstick and Other Stories. Kuo began his distinguished career after receiving his bachelor's degree from Knox in 1961 and his master's of fine arts from the Iowa Writers Workshop, one of the nation's premiere writing programs, in 1963. He has worked as an administrator and a teacher of writing, literature, and ethnic studies at several colleges and universities and is the recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts awards, a Lingnan Foundation Fellowship, a Senior Fulbright Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency, among others. Kuo has returned to his alma mater twice during his career, serving as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence in spring 2004 and spring 2009.

James L. Hallock '69
Listen to the Award Presentation
by Rodney Davis, Professor Emeritus of History; Co-director, Lincoln Studies Center

With more than 39 years of experience in the construction industry, James L. Hallock, a Galesburg native, has dedicated the last 15 years to promoting earthen construction as a solution to environmental and global housing concerns. Beginning with the 1995 founding of Earth Block, Inc., in Colorado, he has served as general contractor on dozens of homes, many of which have been featured in national magazines. In recent years, Hallock has expanded his efforts on an international scale, consulting both on high-end developments and affordable housing projects around the world, including his service as consultant to the United States Department of Agriculture in the reconstruction of Honduras following Hurricane Mitch. As founder and president of a Mexican-based company, Tierra y Cal, Proyectos Sustentables, he continues to focus on bringing healthy, high-quality housing to those in need and is in the process of establishing an institute for training in methods of sustainable construction and living.

Keith E. Maskus '76
Listen to the Award Presentation
by Roy Andersen, Charles W. and Arvilla S. Timme Professor of Economics

Keith E. Maskus, professor of economics and associate dean for social sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is a renowned expert on international trade, including foreign direct investment, intellectual property rights, and the link between trade and technology transfer. He has been a lead economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank, a research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a fellow at the Kiel Institute for World Economics, and a visiting professor at several international universities, including the University of Adelaide, the University of Bocconi, the University of Munich, and Peking University. Maskus also serves as a consultant for the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. He is the author of Intellectual Property Rights in the Global Economy and co-editor of International Public Goods and the Transfer of Technology under a Globalized Intellectual Property Regime.

Matthew L. Berg '00
Listen to the Award Presentation
by John Dooley, Professor Computer Science

After graduating from Knox with a double major in computer science and integrated international studies, Matthew L. Berg received his MBA in international management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. After working several years for Web startups, Berg served as a volunteer for Geekcorps, a non-profit organization working to expand Internet use in emerging nations. He then became Geekcorps' Mali country director and helped create the Last Mile Initiative, a USAID pilot program to bring basic information and communication technologies services to rural African villages. For his work, Berg earned a Tech Museum Laureate Award in 2006, and was featured in CNN's Business 2.0, Make magazine, and in the book WorldChanging. He currently serves as the information and communications technologies coordinator for the Millennium Villages Project at Columbia University, where he oversees the use of technology to help achieve the United Nations Millennium Development goals within Millennium Villages in Sub-Saharan Africa. An emerging leader in the field of mobile health, Berg is helping to pioneer the use of text messages to improve the delivery and monitoring of health services in resource poor settings.

Previous Alumni Achievement Award Recipients