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For Immediate Release |
Contact: Todd Kluss |
Golant to Receive GSA’s 2012 Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Award
The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen Stephen M. Golant, PhD, of the University of Florida, as the 2012 recipient of the Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Award.
This distinguished honor recognizes insightful and innovative publications on aging and life course development in the behavioral and social sciences. It is underwritten by the Baywood Publishing Company and named after social psychologist Richard Kalish, PhD. Any empirical or conceptual publication that represents state-of-the-art thinking in aging and life course development is eligible for the award, provided it is in English and was published in the last three years.
The award presentation will take place at GSA’s 65th Annual Scientific Meeting, which will be held from November 14 to 18 in San Diego. This conference is organized to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, educators, and practitioners who specialize in the study of the aging process. Visit www.geron.org/annualmeeting for further details.
Golant is a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Florida. His primary research interests include the housing, care, mobility, community, and transportation needs of the older adult population. He is a GSA fellow, which represents the Society’s highest class of membership.
He was chosen to receive the Kalish Award for his article, “The Quest for Residential Normalcy by Older Adults: Relocation but One Pathway,” which appeared in the Journal of Aging Studies, (Volume 25, Number 3, Pages 193 to 205). This paper proposes an emotion-based theoretical model to judge whether older adults are occupying residential environments that are congruent with their needs and goals. It offers a highly original and far-reaching theoretical formulation that furthers understanding of how aging persons optimize the fit between themselves and their physical and social environments.
Golant’s model equates this individual-environment fittingness, or “residential normalcy,” with older persons having favorable or positive emotion-based residential experiences that have relevance to them. He theorizes that older adults are in their residential comfort zones when they experience overall pleasurable, hassle-free, and memorable feelings about where they live; and in their residential mastery zones when they occupy places in which they feel overall competent and in control. Older persons often find that their residential and care environments have become emotional battlefields because although they are in their comfort zones, they are out of their mastery zones, or vice versa. When older persons are out of either of these experiential zones, Golant also theorizes that they initiate accommodative (mind strategies) and/or assimilative (action strategies) forms of coping to achieve residential normalcy. He says that distinguishing these constructs becomes critical as individuals increasingly judge residential settings not just for their home-like qualities, but also for their ability to provide long-term care.
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The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) is the nation's oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to research, education, and practice in the field of aging. The principal mission of the Society — and its 5,400+ members — is to advance the study of aging and disseminate information among scientists, decision makers, and the general public. GSA’s structure also includes a policy institute, the National Academy on an Aging Society, and an educational branch, the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education.
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Mildred M. Seltzer Distinguished Service Recognition
Presented to C. Joanne Grabinski, PhD, Eastern Michigan University, and Mary Alice Wolf, PhD, Saint Joseph University.
This award honors colleagues who are near retirement or recently retired. Recipients are individuals who have been actively involved in AGHE through service on committees, as elected officers, and/or have provided leadership in one of AGHE’s grant-funded projects.
Administrative Leadership Award
Presented to Tammy M. Bray, PhD, Oregon State University
This award honors administrators on AGHE member campuses who have made exceptional efforts in support of gerontology or geriatrics education.
David A. Peterson Gerontology & Geriatrics Education Best Paper of the Volume Award
Presented to Nina M. Silverstein, PhD, University of Massachusetts Boston; Elizabeth Johns, MS, University of Massachusetts Boston; and Judith A. Griffin, MA, MS, University of Massachusetts Boston, for the article “Students Explore Livable Communities.” Honorable mention is given to Emily J. Robbins, MS, Miami University; Jennifer M. Kinney, PhD, Miami University; and Cary S. Kart, PhD, Miami University, for the article “Promoting Active Engagement in Health Research: Lessons Learned from an Undergraduate Gerontology Capstone Course.”
The purpose of this award is to recognize excellence in scholarship in academic gerontology in AGHE’s official journal, Gerontology & Geriatrics Education.
Graduate Student Paper Award
Presented to Deborah Gray, MBA, University of Massachusetts Boston, for the paper “Weight and Wealth: The Relationship between Obesity and Net Worth for Pre-Retirement Age Men and Women.”
This award acknowledges excellence in scholarly work conducted by an AGHE Annual Meeting student attendee.
Book Award for Best Children’s Literature on Aging
Presented to Caitlin Dale Nicholson and Leona Morinn-Nelson for “Niwechihaw/I help” in the primary reader (pre-K to 2nd grade) category, and Ann Grifalconi and Jerry Pickney for “Ain’t Nobody A Stranger to Me” in the elementary reader (3rd to 5th grade) category.
This award recognizes portrayals of meaningful aging in children’s literature.
