Faculty in the College of Liberal Arts at Texas State University are being recognized for excellence in research, scholarship, and creative work. These prestigious awards honor the dedication, talent, and impact of our faculty across a range of disciplines. From national accolades to university-level honors, our scholars continue to elevate the visibility of the liberal arts and contribute to broader conversations in their fields.
We are proud to celebrate their achievements and share the stories that inspire continued academic excellence.
Dr. Toni Watt receives the 2025 Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Government Award.
Dr. Toni Watt, Professor and Chair of Sociology, was recently awarded the 2025 Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Government Awards, given for research that contributes to the public good. This is a prestigious and highly competitive national award from the American Evaluation Association. The award recognizes those “whose evaluation work is highly influential in governmental contexts and who have been particularly instrumental in furthering the interests of evaluation through advocacy, sponsorship, management, or use of evaluation in government, including local, state, and federal government”. Throughout her career, Dr. Watt has dedicated herself to evaluating programs and policies designed to improve outcomes for children and youth who have experienced trauma and/or the foster care system. She has extensive experience as a contracted program evaluator and initiated numerous policy studies to ensure that evaluation data is available to inform legislative decisions. Dr. Watt is an advocate for participatory research, consistently engaging individuals with lived experience in the foster care system as research partners. Her scholarly work has been featured in academic journals, white papers, national and international media, and legislative testimony. In addition, Dr. Watt is committed to mentoring the next generation of evaluation researchers. She co-founded and co-directs the Texas State Sociology SOAR (Student Opportunities for Applied Research) program, which provides undergraduate students with opportunities to conduct applied research.
Dr. Rhonda Balzarin is awarded the Texas State University Presidential Seminar Award
Rhonda Balzarin, assistant professor of Psychology, is awarded the Texas State University Presidential Seminar Award. Dr. Balzarin also serves as a Research Fellow at the Kinsey Institute. Her research investigates the psychological and social processes that help couples build and sustain intimacy over time. She has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters and secured over $600,000 in external funding to support her research program.
Using longitudinal, dyadic, and experimental methods paired with advanced statistical modeling, Dr. Balzarini’s work advances understanding of how relational dynamics — such as novelty, responsiveness, and technology-mediated experiences — shape the quality and stability of romantic relationships. Her work is featured in high-impact journals (h-index = 23; i10-index = 31) and has garnered coverage in major media outlets, including Time, Rolling Stone, and The Wall Street Journal.
Joseph Laycock Receives the 2025 Texas State University’s University Humanities Research Excellence Award
Dr. Joseph Laycock, associate professor of religious studies, is the recipient of the 2025 University Humanities Research Excellence Award. Dr. Laycock has earned an international reputation for his work in the study of new religious movements. His research interests include theory and method in religious studies, moral panic, and spirit possession and exorcism.
Since coming to Texas State in the fall of 2014, he has produced five monographs with academic presses, two readers, an edited volume, an encyclopedia, ten peer-reviewed journal articles, ten book chapters, and dozens of book reviews, reference articles, and popular articles for outlets such as The Conversation, The Houston Chronicle, Salon, and Smithsonian Magazine. Recent publications include New Religious Movements: The Basics (Routledge 2022), The Exorcist Effect: Religion, Horror, and Demonic Belief (Oxford University Press, 2023), and The Penguin Book of Cults (Penguin 2025). He is also a co-general editor for the journal Nova Religio.
Cyrus Cassells Wins 2025 Jackson Poetry Prize, $100,000 Award
Cyrus Cassells, Regents’ and University Distinguished Professor of English, has received the 2025 Jackson Poetry Prize, one of the most prestigious honors for American poets. Presented by Poets & Writers, the $100,000 award recognizes a poet of exceptional talent.
Author of 11 collections, including the recently published Everything in Life is Resurrection: Selected Poems, 1982–2022, Cassells was praised by judges for his “brave compassion,” lyrical precision, and global scope. His work draws from personal, historical, and cultural memory to create powerful, enduring poetry.
Cassells’ career includes two NEA fellowships, a Guggenheim, and honors from the Texas Institute of Letters. He served as the 2021–2022 Poet Laureate of Texas and continues to inspire students and readers through his teaching and creative work at Texas State.