CSUF’s Outstanding Prof of Year Is Highly Credentialed, Highly Popular

Jane V. Hall, an economics professor and nationally recognized expert on environmental economics, has won Cal State Fullerton’s annual Outstanding Professor Award.

Hall, who is also chairwoman of CSUF’s Academic Senate, will receive the award, which carries a $4,000 prize, during graduation ceremonies in May.

Hall learned of the award last week: Campus President Milton A. Gordon walked in with the news as she chaired a session of the Academic Senate.

“It was a very strange thing because I was focusing on the parliamentary procedures when he walked in,” she said Friday. “It didn’t register. My first thought was, ‘What’s going to happen to the agenda?’ ”

After Gordon made the announcement, the senate members gave a standing ovation.

“I was overwhelmed,” Hall said. “I’m not ordinarily speechless, but on that occasion I was.”

The winner is selected by a faculty committee from a wide range of nominees. The committee makes its recommendation to the campus president for approval.

Hall has taught at CSUF for nearly 20 years. Her courses have included microeconomic theory, international and environmental economics, and environmental regulation. She also was among the first CSUF professors to offer courses online.

The award recognizes Hall’s contributions to the university in teaching but also in scholarship and in the less tangible area of helping to set the college’s direction, said Keith Boyum, acting associate vice president for academic programs.

“She’s there when people need her,” Boyum said. “She has been a spectacular leader.”

Hall serves on a committee that established hiring and staff-evaluation guidelines, and determines which members of the faculty will receive tenure, Boyum said.

Hall’s academic work has led to more than 60 reports, book chapters and peer-reviewed articles. She wrote the book “Air Pollution and Regional Economic Performance: A Case Study” (1997, JAI Press).

Hall serves on two panels of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee and the Science Advisory Board Council on Clean Air Compliance Analysis.

She is also a member of the California Air Resources Board’s Innovative Clean Air Technologies Advisory Committee and the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Southern California Center for Airborne Particulate Matter. And she was vice chairwoman of the South Coast Air Quality Management Advisory Council.

Hall, who received her doctorate from UC Berkeley, lives in Laguna Beach.