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SAS 2013 Teaching Awards |
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April 16, 2013,
Volume 59, No. 29 |
Dr. Rebecca W. Bushnell, dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, and Dr. Dennis DeTurck, dean of the College, announce the following recipients of the School’s 2013 teaching awards, to be presented on Thursday, April 25, at an awards reception open to the University community. The reception will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. in room 200, College Hall. |
Ira H. Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching
This year’s recipients of SAS’s highest teaching honor are Dr. David Brainard, professor of psychology, and Dr. Kathy Peiss, the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History. Created in 1983, the Ira H. Abrams Award recognizes teaching that is intellectually challenging and exceptionally coherent, and honors faculty who embody high standards of integrity and fairness, have a strong commitment to learning and are open to new ideas.
Dr. Brainard’s teaching engages students in the complex interdisciplinary areas of his research in human and machine vision and visual processing. According to one of his faculty colleagues, “If anyone can take a complicated problem or idea and walk the listener through until it is understood, it is David.” In seminars, survey courses, office hours and labs, another colleague notes that “David’s contributions to teaching excellence benefit Penn tremendously at all levels, ranging from undergraduates to assistant professors.”
Dr. Peiss sets impeccably high standards for her undergraduate and graduate students of American history, while also fostering their creativity and intellectual voices. Exemplifying what a faculty colleague calls “Kathy’s way of exciting her students about the practice of history for its own sake,” one of Dr. Peiss’s undergraduate students notes that she “inspired my classmates and me to enjoy history and the scholarly process in a way that transcended traditional performance and grading.”
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Dean's Award for Innovation in Teaching
This award, which recognizes exceptional creativity and innovation in instruction, is presented to Dr. Peter Struck, associate professor of classical studies.
In reworking his Greek and Roman class for the online Coursera environment, Dr. Struck, writes a colleague, “has found an innovative way to secure the essential humanity of teaching, even online, even to thousands of students at one time.” He is no less pioneering in face-to-face teaching, serving as a founding force behind the Integrated Studies Program, a residentially-based liberal arts curriculum for College freshmen who are Benjamin Franklin Scholars.
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Dean's Award for Mentorship of Undergraduate Research
This award recognizes faculty members who have excelled in nurturing undergraduate students’ desires and abilities to conduct meaningful research. This year SAS honors Dr. Masao Sako, associate professor of physics and astronomy, who, according to one of his colleagues, “has an amazing ability to come up with projects that have just the right combination of a significant challenge for undergraduate physics students along with the opportunity for meaningful success.”
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Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching by an Assistant Professor
This award recognizes a member of the junior faculty who demonstrates unusual promise as an educator. The 2013 recipient is Dr. Jeffrey Green, Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences in the department of political science. As a fellow faculty member notes, “Jeff has compiled a truly extraordinary teaching record that includes excelling in seminars, lecture courses and mentoring of both undergraduate and graduate research.”
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Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching by Affiliated Faculty
This award recognizes the contributions to undergraduate education made by the School’s non-standing faculty. This year’s recipient is Dr. Shannon Lundeen, associate director of the gender, sexuality and women’s studies program. According to a colleague, “Shannon’s courses [in gender and society, contemporary feminist thought and the science of sex, to name just a few] are impressive for their interdisciplinary breadth and rigor.”
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LPS Distinguished Teaching Award
This award honors outstanding teaching and advising in the College of Liberal and Professional Studies (LPS).
This year’s recipient of the award for standing faculty is Dr. Peter Decherney, associate professor of English. According to a faculty colleague, in teaching courses that explore the relations between copyright and culture as well as law and media, “[Peter] actively knits together professional and humanistic concerns in… his teaching.”
The award for non-standing faculty goes to Dr. Meta Mazaj, senior lecturer in the cinema studies program, who, as it has been noted by her colleague, “has become a gold standard for teaching in the cinema studies program and an outstanding classroom presence who… combines grace, wit and a demanding intellect in leading… classes.”
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Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching by Graduate Students
This award recognizes graduate students for teaching that is intellectually rigorous and has a considerable impact on undergraduate students. This year’s awardees are:
Rosanna Dent, history & sociology of science
María Alejandra Díaz-Miranda, biology
Ellen Donnelly, political science
Lindsey Fiorelli, philosophy
Marina Isgro, history of art
Sam Lin, anthropology
Donald McLaughlin, English
Bridget Swanson, Germanic languages and literatures
Bronwyn Wallace, English
Ursula Williams, chemistry
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Almanac -
April 16, 2013, Volume 59, No. 29
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