Diggs Teaching Scholars
Awards 1999-Present
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Anthony Kwame Harrison: Anthony Kwame Harrison is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. He holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where he won their Outstanding Dissertation Award. Anthony teaches introductory level courses on African American Studies and Social Anthropology. He also teaches a senior level course on the sociology of popular music. His research explores the social construction of race and the role of music in structuring social activities and interactions. He is a trustee of the Bement School. Tom L. Martin: Tom Martin is an associate professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech, where he is the co-director of the Virginia Tech E-textiles Lab. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati. His current research and teaching interests include wearable computing, electronic textiles, and interdisciplinary design teams for pervasive computing. In 2006 he was selected for the National Science Foundation's Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for his research in e-textile-based wearable computing. |
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Barbara Bekken: Barbara Bekken is a part-time non-tenure track faculty member in Geosciences who held a contract appointment with the Provost's Office from 2006-10 to direct the Earth Sustainability Integrative Liberal Education Program. She holds graduate degrees in Ore Deposits Geology and Geochemistry (PhD Stanford '90) and Metamorphic Petrology (MS U Washington '80) but has dedicated her career to studying how undergraduate students know and learn. Specifically, her academic interests have delved into evaluating how various pedagogical approaches and curricular designs promote increasingly sophisticated personal theories of learning and knowing. Working closely with an interdisciplinary team of scholars, she designed and helped teach three cohorts of first and second year students who participated in the experimental Earth Sustainability Integrative Liberal Education ProgramâÃÂÃÂa two-year interdisciplinary and wholly integrative curriculum designed to fulfill Virginia Tech's general education requirements and AACU's Essential Learning Outcomes. Her recent research has focused on evaluating student learning outcomes from the Earth Sustainability series to discern which practices were most effective in creating sophisticated integrative thinkers with the skills and motivation to become lifelong learners. Mary Kasarda: Mary Kasarda is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech. Her research has included work in magnetic bearing, rotor dynamics, health monitoring, and engineering education topics. She has six years of professional engineering experience, and her background is in various aspects of turbomachinery engineering. She is the 2010-11 chair of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Committee on Engineering Accreditation (CEA). In 2003-2004, she acted as an education consultant through Virginia Tech to Sweet Briar College to help facilitate a new engineering program at this all-women liberal arts college. She is currently working with Dr. Brenda Brand in the VT Department of Science Education on a partnership involving two VT mechanical engineering courses to support a high-school robotics course, including the FIRST robotics competition, in the local Montgomery Public School System. She is conducting research to identify components of engineering and pre-engineering programs that are successfully retaining and graduating women in an effort to replicate these components in other engineering programs. Robert Stephens: Robert Stephens is an associate professor of History and the Principal of the Honors Residential College. His research focuses on the history of drugs and addiction, digital humanities, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. He has been a longtime proponent of undergraduate research. He has published widely on undergraduate research and founded the Virginia Tech Undergraduate Historical Review. More recently, his has begun experiential learning and research on living-learning communities and residential colleges in his role at the Honors Residential College. |
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Ellington Graves: Ellington Graves is Assistant Director of the Center for Africana Studies and Race and Social Policy Research. He teaches in the Department of Sociology, offering courses on race and ethnicity, social inequality, the sociology of education and religion, and, on occasion, introductory sociology and sociological theory. His research interests include investigations of the role of residential segregation in racial disparities, theories of race and racism, and the dynamics of racial identity. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mitzi R. Vernon: Mitzi R. Vernon is an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture + Design. She joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 1995. She holds a Master of Science in Engineering in Product Design from Stanford University and a Master of Architecture from Virginia Tech. Prior teaching experience includes the California College of Arts, the University of Southern California, and Arizona State University. She has been recipient of several patents and grants (including three from the National Science Foundation) supporting her gender-equity research in using design to teach science to children. Vernon is the 2007 recipient of the Diversity Award from the College of Architecture & Urban Studies. She is a past President of the Faculty Senate and the current Chair of the Committee on Faculty Ethics. She has extensive experience with sponsored collaborative studio projects involving computer science, engineering, physics, industrial design, and architecture topics and students. She is a recipient of the 2008 Dell ReGeneration International Design Educator Awards. Tom Walker: Tom Walker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education. Tom began his career in engineering education in 1984 by direct order, not by choice. Ordered to report as an instructor of mechanical engineering at the Naval Academy, he rapidly realized he had found his niche and soon developed a reputation for integrating technology into the engineering learning space. He co-chaired the academy committee that initiated a personal computer requirement for all midshipmen - co-incidentally in the same time-frame the VT College of Engineering initiated their PC requirement. Upon leaving the navy in 1988, he accepted his current position in the Engineering Education (then the Engineering Fundamentals) department where for 21 years he has championed the use of appropriate educational technologies and pedagogies to empower student learning and respond to a changing world. Most recently he has been recognized for his innovative use and support for Tablet-convertible PCs and associated applications such as DyKnow. Tom considers it a high privilege to work with the faculty, staff, and students at Virginia Tech where he can associate with supportive and innovative personnel and experiment with the latest educational technologies. |
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Paulo S. Polanah: Paulo S Polanah is an assistant professor of Africana studies / sociology in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. Polanah received his bachelor's degree from the Southern Utah University, a master's degree from the University of Nevada, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Polanah's areas of research and teaching include colonial and neo-colonial studies, cultural violence and identicide, and historical relationships the West has established with other parts of the world. His courses have become very popular, often resulting in over-enrolled class sections. His courses have the reputation of being stimulating and challenging. He has consistently assembled an impressive student evaluation record. Students are expected to engage in lively classroom discussions, and Polanah challenges his students with a wide variety of teaching techniques. Janis Terpenny: Janis Terpenny is a Professor with a joint appointment in the Departments of Engineering Education and Mechanical Engineering and is an affiliate faculty in Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. She collaborates with industry and community partners in research and in teaching in her roles as Director of the 5-university NSF Center for e-Design, as the Course Coordinator for senior capstone design for Mechanical Engineering with over 280 students enrolled annually, and as a member of the teaching team in Engineering Education of 900+ first-year engineering students. The focus of her Diggs Roundtable was on realism and its power for tapping into students' passion for learning. She described her experiences of how learning and engagement are improved with the use of real problems with real partners and guided attendees in a conversation of how to identify their passion and opportunities for bringing realism into the classroom. She is an Advance Professor and a Dean's Faculty Fellow in the College of Engineering. Her research in engineering design and design education has been supported by numerous grants from NSF and industry. Yonsenia White: Yonsenia White holds the rank of associate professor in the School of Visual Arts at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia. Born in Colorado, Yonsenia White was raised in both North Carolina and Newport News, Virginia. She earned a BA and BFA in Studio Art from Virginia Tech in drawing and sculpture. She holds an MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts in installation art, performance art and mixed media at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. For over ten years, White has taught studio art courses in basic drawing, 2 and 3D fundamentals, found object sculpture, installation art, performance art, and professional studio practices. Her outreach and research interests have lead her to interdisciplinary projects and teaching opportunities in the Women's Studies Program, the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Department of Management in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. She consistently presents papers on her teaching pedagogy in national and regional art conferences and gives lectures by and about artists from marginalized and underrepresented groups whose artwork engages in personal, political and social activism. |
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Gena Chandler: Gena Chandler is an assistant professor in the Department of English whose scholarly area is African American literature with a particular focus on post-1970 contemporary African American writers. Her current work examines the form and function of story in examining several distinct features that she has outlined as an integral part of these writers' narrative strategies. She is particularly interested in the intersection of story and discourse in expressing new epistemological and ontological understandings of black identity as a diasporic condition found in the works of contemporary black male and female writers. She is also interested in these writers' expressions of ideas about black being in their works rather than a monolithic concept of black identity. Brian R. Murphy: Brian R. Murphy is fisheries and wildlife science professor at Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources. Murphy is a graduate of the University of Detroit (B.S., '75), Purdue University (M.S., '77), and Virginia Tech (Ph.D., '81). His academic interests include natural resource education, fisheries management, reservoir ecology, and international conservation. Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd: Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work and teaching integrates the study of politics, law, women's studies, and Black studies. Trained as a lawyer and political scientist, she is currently an Assistant Professor of Women's Studies at Virginia Tech in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, where she teaches courses on race, gender, and the law, Black women in the U.S., and feminist theory. Her current research explores the gender politics of contemporary Black nationalism, and has appeared in such journals as Frontiers, the International Journal of Africana Studies, and Meridians. She is Co-Founder, along with Rose Harris, of the Association for the Study of Black Women in Politics, and her first book, Gender, Race, and Nationalism in Contemporary Black Politics, will be published with Palgrave Macmillan. |
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James Dubinsky: Jim Dubinsky is associate professor of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and is serving currently as the inaugural director of the Center for Student Engagement & Community Partnerships (CSECP), In his scholarship, professional practices, and teaching, Dubinsky epitomizes the highest ideals of university outreach. Originally hired to build the Professional Writing Program at Virginia Tech, he has worked to transform the program to include real life writing projects wherever possible. His work as the director of the program has had a far-reaching impact on Tech's outreach mission. To enact his philosophy on the value of partnerships with the community, he serves on the board of directors for the YMCA, and his classes have assisted over a dozen organizations by creating brochures, newsletters, websites, promotional material, annual reports, and grants. His leadership and innovation have been rewarded with the Service-Learning Center's Outstanding Educator Award during spring of 2000 and the College of Liberal Arts and Human Science’s Award for Outreach Excellence in 2005. O. Hayden Griffin: Hayden Griffin, professor of engineering, joined Virginia Tech in 1985. As head of the Department of Engineering Education, Griffin has planned and led changes in the department from a primarily teaching-only, freshman engineering program to a degree-granting, research-oriented department. He has also led the development of a Graduate Certificate in Engineering Education, which is currently in place, and led the effort to create a graduate program for the department, which will be the first of the kind in the nation. Jill Sible: Jill Sible, associate professor of biology in the College of Science, joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 1998. Her research on gender equity in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics has tracked a pattern of low retention among female and minority undergraduates. Sible is engaged in research funded by the National Science Foundation to test her hypothesis that the environment in which science is taught may center on a Caucasian, male-oriented culture. To curtail exclusivity in science, Sible seeks to foster a sense of inclusion and empowerment within her classroom. While her research has identified bias against - and attrition of - females during the undergraduate years at Virginia Tech, it also shows significant evidence of an improvement in women's self-confidence in the discipline due to the employment of teaching strategies similar to those used by Sible. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of New Hampshire and her doctorate from Tufts U. School of Medicine. |
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Clare J Dannenberg: Clare J. Dannenberg specializes in language variation research and is the Director of the Linguistics Speech Lab within the English Department. Clare has taught various courses, including Language and Society, English Syntax, and Langauge and Gender, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Currently, she is working towards the implementation of the Dialect Awareness Curriculum, designed to raise consciousness about language variation and its consequences in United States Englishes for freshman English classes at Virginia Tech and for teachers and students in the Montgomery County School system. Clare additionally continues to focus her research on how identity for disenfranchised groups in the United States is continually negotiated through language use. Peter Wallenstein: Peter Wallenstein is a professor in history department. He came to Virginia Tech in 1983, after teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Toronto, and the University of Maryland (in its overseas program, mostly in Japan and Korea). He teaches Historical Methods (he calls that class the Wallenstein Professional Development Institute) as well as a wide range of other classes, undergraduate and graduate. A specialist in the history of the U.S. South, he has authored four books and co-authored or co-edited three others. His publications have brought him three best-article awards, the Sturm Award, and the 2004 Distinguished Scholar award in history from the Virginia Social Science Association. Karl Precoda: Karl Precoda teaches a range of courses, from first-year surveys to senior seminars, in American Studies, Appalachian Studies, Humanities and the Arts including Film and Popular Culture, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Religious Studies. His teaching awards include the Certificate of Teaching Excellence from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies Commendation for Teaching Excellence, and the Residential Leadership Community Outstanding Faculty. A member of the Association for Integrative Studies and the Appalachian Studies Association, he holds degrees from the University of Virginia (PhD), Humboldt State University (MA), and UCLA (BA). He was recently profiled in Wired magazine. |
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Robert Siegle: Robert Siegle (English) is honored today for his teaching that is global in reach, technologically savvy, and humane in nature. In a department of strong teachers, Bob sets himself apart by exhibiting both excellence in the classroom and dedication to program-wide curricular innovation. Teaching a wide range of courses, Siegle consistently receives superlative evaluations from students. Appreciation of his innovative approaches by students and colleagues led to his selection by the English Department to lead the revision of the entire composition program twice. Another example of his innovation is exemplified in his development of a course in Postcolonial Cultural Studies, which was enriched by his Fulbrights to Sri Lanka and India. This course led him to develop The Asia Connection, a multi-media website funded by Virginia Tech's Center for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the University Office of International Programs, the Center for Innovative Learning, and the College of Arts and Sciences. More recently, Siegle's interest in contemporary literature, film, architecture, and music led him to produce a series of new courses in Contemporary Culture. Today, Siegle will discuss the difficulties of connecting research and teaching and how the two can be synergized within environments of deliberate design in his presentation titled, Theory for Beginners. Catherine Eckel & Sheryl Ball: Both Catherine Eckel and Sheryl Ball stand out individually in the field of Economics and have a history of collaboration with one another. Their work together led to the development of their topic of discussion today: Using Our WITS: A system for adapting research experiments for teaching economics. Designed to introduce students to the structure and conduct of research while using experiments to illustrate the process, this approach enables active learning in large class sections. While each has a distinct research agenda, they have in common the methodology of experimental economics. Their research is inherently interdisciplinary, crossing boundaries between economics and psychology, sociology, and even biology, with most of their work conducted in the Lab for the Study of Human Thought and Action, a dedicated behavioral research lab that Catherine directs. Since joining the Virginia Tech faculty in 1983, Professor Catherine Eckel, has developed three new courses and co-created two with Sheryl Ball. She has served as Principle Investigator or Co-PI on six teaching-related grants, including two teaching/learning awards; one major CIL grant with Sheryl; two from NSF and one from the Mellon Foundation. In 2003, she was appointed one of four University Advance Professors, co-directing a $3.5 million award from NSF's Advance Program, to promote women in science and engineering. Sheryl Ball was recruited to Virginia Tech in 1992. Since then, she has developed three courses on her own and two with Catherine. Her honors include six teaching-related grants, a grant from the National Institute of Dispute Resolution, and she is a member of a team at Virginia Tech that was awarded an NSF IGERT grant to develop a joint graduate program in engineering and business. In 2002, she received the Virginia Tech Advising Award for revamping the undergraduate advising system as Director of Undergraduate Studies, and in 2003, was awarded a College of Arts and Sciences Certificate of Teaching Excellence. Sharon Johnson: In her six years at Virginia Tech, Sharon Johnson (Foreign Languages and Literatures), has distinguished herself as a pioneer in the pursuit of innovative pedagogical and scholarly initiatives for cross-cultural communication and education. This has gained her recognition in many ways, including a Certificate of Teaching Excellence in 2001. Perhaps most notable is her creation of the Images, Myths, and Realities Across Cultures (IMRAC) project involving students at Virginia Tech, the Sorbonne in Paris, and the Institut National des Telecommunications, one of France's top ten business and engineering schools. The project is designed to provide students with the opportunity to exchange ideas on a selection of themes and contemporary cultural issues by having them analyze and discuss images and texts pertaining to France and the United States through web-based chats, email, and simultaneous, live video-conferencing. It is this project that is the topic of her discussion today titled, The Pleasures and Paradoxes of Cross-cultural Pedagogy: How Linguistic and Cultural Discord Engenders Cross Cultural Understanding. Building on the goals of IMRAC, Sharon worked to transform the curriculum, and was co-writer and one of three principal investigators for a $390,000 US Department of Education Title VI grant. Out of this, three new courses have been approved, five Virginia Tech courses have been modified, and three new study abroad opportunities have been approved, as well as internship possibilities in French companies. Two new French for Business minors and a French for Business Certificate have been approved, and a Concentration in French for Business has been implemented. These successful collaborations across two colleges were recognized with the University Exemplary Department Award in Fall 2003. Additionally, Sharon has helped to revitalize the French curriculum at Virginia Tech by creating one course, co-developing three courses, and redesigning another. |
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Andy Becker: Andy Becker teaches multiple levels of Latin, Greek and Classic courses, including one he has developed for the European Studies Program in Riva San Vitale on ancient and modern poetry, and a distance learning Latin literature course. He also frequently lectures for GTA seminars and the Critical Methods course for the Area studies Masters Program. Becker is actively involved in outreach to high schools and has been a teacher and director of the prestigious Governors' Latin Academy for many years. He often speaks and leads workshops at the Mountain Valley Latin Teachers' Association, the Foreign Language Association of Virginia, and the Classical Association of Virginia. Elisabeth Bloomer: Elisabeth Bloomer teaches first-year writing and higher-level creative writing in the English Department. She is a long-time GTA advisor and currently directs the GTA Advising program, thereby also inspiring the department's newest teachers. Bloomer's dedication to students and to the English department is illustrated in many ways, including her tutoring of upcoming freshmen in the Upward Bound program and service to the Department's Undergraduate Committee while it was redesigning the undergraduate curriculum. She was a pioneer in the department's first forays into on-line teaching and has continued to develop on-line tools for the Creative Writing and First-Year Writing courses. Tonya Smith-Jackson: Tonya Smith-Jackson teaches a variety of courses at all levels in Industrial and Systems Engineering, with an emphasis on Human Factors. She has been instrumental in diversifying the ISE curriculum, and received two Student Success Grants to help students understand how diversity applies to engineering problems, as well as a CEUT Teaching Learning Grant to study cultural ergonomics, which involved travel to the University of Ghana-Legon to observe safety and culture among workers in West Africa. |
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Megan Boler: Megan Boler, Associate Professor, Department of Teaching and Learning. Megan is honored today for being a passionate and inspiring educator and for her service to the academic community. Her fields of interest include education, philosophy, women's studies and cultural studies, in which she is widely published. Among her many projects since joining the faculty in 1998, is the creation of a Diversity Resources Center that K-12 teachers can use to develop curriculum inclusive of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. Bill Snizek:Bill Snizek, Alumni Distinguished Professor, Department of Sociology. Bill is honored today as an outstanding teacher of sociology and an important contributor to the teaching culture at Virginia Tech. In his 30th year at Tech, Bill places the needs of his students first, as he continues to experiment with and employ innovative practices in his classes. He is especially recognized for developing numerous methods to enhance learning in the large lecture class, including the "Sociological I.Q. Test," used to help students recognize cultural stereotypes and become more open-minded. John Seiler: John Seiler, Professor, Department of Forestry. John is honored today as an innovator in the development of multimedia computer software and distance education technologies, and for his efforts to improve forestry education beyond Tech's campus. His novel approach to the field of forestry led to his creation of the multimedia electronic textbook, Forest Biology, and multimedia plant identification program, Woody Plants of North America, which has been shown to significantly improve student performance in the identification of forest plants. |
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Stacey Floyd-Thomas: Stacey Floyd-Thomas joined the faculty of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in 1997. Since then, she has been appointed coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Interdisciplinary Task Force. She has transformed a number of courses and helped to put in place new degree options in Leadership and Social Change, Global Studies, and Creative Processes. She has received CEUT summer faculty and globalizing initiatives grants and an ASPIRES grant, under which she has collaborated to establish an Interdisciplinary Study Abroad opportunity at the University of Cheik Anta Diop in Senegal. Nominator Laura Gillman says that Dr. Floyd-Thomas's teaching "generates dreams and possibilities in the souls of her students." Teaching courses in Religious Studies, Black Studies, Women's Studies, and Interdisciplinary Studies, she finds ethics and social justice to be points of cohesion in all of her courses. In addition to a wide variety of written texts, she uses service learning, internships, and field study as opportunities for students to implement their theoretical knowledge in more active contexts. Richard Goff: Richard Goff, who typically teaches three or four sections per semester and advises 150 to 200 students, has created a revolutionary change in the freshman engineering program . According to Engineering Fundamentals Director Hayden Griffin, "Richard pioneered the work with Lego Mindstorms for allowing students to design, create, and test robotic cars. The finale of the experience was a competition in which the students' creations competed against each other to negotiate a maze and find a target on the floor. Photos of the students clearly show their interest and excitement with this effort." Dr. Goff has also collaborated with Professor Mitzi Vernon of the Industrial Design Program in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies in creating mixed groups of students from the two colleges which design and build robotic creations. As Goff says, "The top students will learn no matter what the teacher does. But many creative students drop out of engineering every year because they do not experience connections between theoretical learning and the practical application of knowledge." Dr. Goff is the recipient of three Certificates of Teaching Excellence and the Sporn Award for Excellence in Teaching of Engineering Subjects. He is the Director of the Frith Freshman Engineering Design Laboratory. Working with colleagues, he has received a CEUT Summer Faculty Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Design as well as three SUCCEED grants for Hands-On Laboratory, Early Design, and Curriculum Renewal. An anonymous student comments, "Goff is the kind of teacher that you look up to and respect, because he respects his students. ...Always very approachable, friendly, and peaceful. Has some really cool experiences to share as well." Monte Boisen: Monte Boisen, who has taught mathematics at Virginia Tech for 31 years, has received four Certificates of Teaching Excellence, the Wine Award, the Arts and Sciences Diversity Award, and the Xcaliber Award, among many others. As Mathematics Departmental Coordinator for Minority Recruitment and Affairs, he founded the Association of African-American Mathematicians at Virginia Tech, which engages in a variety of efforts to recruit and retain minority students. He has taken a leadership role in transforming the Math Emporium so that, in the words of his colleague Bud Brown, "it places the student in the centernot the machines, not the material." Dr. Boisen says, "Our ability to support the success of students is greatly dependent on the degree to which we value their individual diferences. If all we mean by wanting diversity on this campus is for there to be a lot of isolated people with diverse backgrounds, then we have achieved diversity on paper, but we will never really mature as a University. If, on the other hand, we learn to value the ways people are different--to incorporate their dreams, their talents, and their goals into the fabric of the University-- then we have an opportunity to make this an exciting place, a place where all students and faculty have an opportunity to grow." As one former student says, "I continue to recommend Dr. Boisen without any reservation. He is truly a marvel among college professors." |
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Beveryly Bunch-Lyons: Beverly Bunch-Lyons joined the History Department in 1995, after receiving her doctorate at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. History Department Chair Albert Moyer suggests that since coming to Virginia Tech, Bunch-Lyons has "expanded her legacy of excellence in the classroom" and has introduced "pertinent and engaging classroom projects into large survey classes where lectures are the norm." Indeed, the Diggs selection committee was impressed and fascinated by her nine touchstones for good teaching and the detailed planning and understanding that goes into her projects. Colleagues and students at Virginia Tech and other Universities describe her as "talented and dedicated," showing a very high level of expertise and creativity in the classroom. Professor Bunch-Lyons' skillfully conceived and executed projects include a study of the Great Depression, in which students actually shop for groceries on a depression-era budget and prepare food from a menu of depression-era recipes. Others involve the use of scavenger hunts in the library, novels to teach African-American Women's History, oral history, and service learning. Her methods focus on active learning that teaches students to use and understand primary materials and comprehensive research. Bunch-Lyons embodies the Teacher-Scholar whose understanding of her subject is fully integrated in the classroom and whose teaching is fully integrated with her research and a model of best practice. For the Fall Roundtable, Bunch-Lyons will discuss her active learning exercises and cooperative learning. Jimmy Martin: Jimmy Martin joined the Civil and Environmental Engineering faculty in 1991, and since then has distinguished himself with a number of awards, including recognition as a National Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, and selection as Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia. Dr. James Duncan, University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, writes, "In my 30 years as a Civil Engineering faculty member, I have never known a faculty member who was more effective in communicating with undergraduate students." Nominating Professor W.R. Knocke describes Martin as "the best that we can hope for in our faculty when considering our mission as educators." Many praise Martin for his commitment to technological innovation in teaching with the application of cognitive learning theory to computer based multi-media packages for classroom instruction. He conducts successful recruitment programs, particularly with minority students. His work in the classroom and in research focuses on "real world" projects. The Diggs selection committee was impressed with examples of such work in the area of earthquake engineering. A close correlation among Martin's teaching, professional research and service combine with compassionate and informed understanding of student learning and what some described as a rare grace and humility. For the Fall Roundtable, Martin will focus on the use of new teaching/learning methods (including technological advances) for delivering engineering courses to undergraduate students. Katherine Allen: Katherine Allen of Human Development "treats teaching and learning as a living laboratory," according to nominator Dr. Michael J. Sporakowski. "She provides examples of informed reflexive consciousness in teaching and scholarship toward the creation of a more inclusive, balanced, and invigorated family studies, using examples from her teaching at Virginia Tech and her life experience and research on family diversity." Allen supervises graduate students who teach large undergraduate courses in Human Development, and has organized teaching symposia for these GTA's to "spotlight" their skills in teaching around multicultural, controversial, and sensitive subjects in family studies and human development. Professor Allen's interdisciplinary work includes collaborations with the Women's Studies Program in CIS and the Center for Gerontology; currently she team teaches a course for Interdisciplinary Studies with Professors Stacey-Floyd Thomas and Laura Gorfkle. Her many awards include selection as a Fellow by the National Council of Family Relationships, the Ernest Osborne Award for Excellence in Teaching from the National Council on Family Relations, an Excellence in Instruction Award from the Department of Family and Child Development at Virginia Tech, a University Wine Award, and a Certificate of Teaching Excellence in the College of Human Resources. Students consistently describe her teaching as "the best" and even "awesome!" Her colleagues find her a compassionate and learned mentor with seemingly boundless energy for self-questioning, boundary challenging, and professional achievement. Her Diggs interview energized and inspired the group as she argued convincingly against burnout and cynicism, and for continuous high level achievement and great pleasure in teaching. For the Fall Roundtable, Allen will discuss ideas about diversity and offer strategies that are relevant for students' and teachers' experiences. |
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Ron Kander: Ron Kander, of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, is recognized for his outstanding teaching, curriculum development, and learning environment enhancement activities in the department, college, university and surrounding community. He is Director of the College of Engineering's "Green Engineering" Program, a University concentration for engineering students, focusing on the environmental aspects of a student's particular engineering discipline. He has initiated the Science on Wheels program, which brings science and engineering experiments into 5th grade classrooms of nearby school districts in order to stimulate student interests in science. He is a demanding and enthusiastic teacher, whose classes are a blend of participatory active learning exercises, traditional classroom instruction, and electronic multimedia lecture delivery formats. He always has the students' best interests in mind every day, and he is an inspiration to the younger faculty in his department. For the fall Roundtable, his discussion is entitled "Creativity and Problem Solving." Mark Schneider: Mark Schneider, of the Foundation Studies Program in the Department of Architecture, College of Architecture and Urban Studies, is recognized for his outstanding contributions to the education of beginning Architecture students. He has transformed the two — semester History of Architecture course into a class which integrates the study of architectural history into the intellectual development of his students. He has developed a true insight into the needs of students who are at the beginning of their studies, and has created an environment in which students truly want to learn. In a class of 200 students, he reads student essays four times a semester, has initiated weekly small — group discussion sessions after lectures, and directs semester — long research projects. As one student remarked, "Dr. Schneider is truly an example of what a scholar is and ought to be." His fall Roundtable discussion will be on "Developing Educational Models for Beginning University Students." Brenda S. J. Winkel: Brenda S. J. Winkel, of the Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences, is recognized for her exceptional success in blending research and teaching, especially in molecular biology. She has revamped the curriculum in that discipline and has been a leader in the mentoring of undergraduate students doing research. In addition, she has mentored a number of students in the University Honors Program, including Anna Leung, one of the 1999 Goldwater Scholars. These mentoring activities are all the more noteworthy in view of the fact that her only reward is the joy of seeing a student get excited about a research project. In the classroom, she creates a friendly and scholarly environment in which the students are encouraged to take an active role in learning. Her achievements, enthusiasm and cooperative spirit set a high standard for faculty and student alike. As a role model for young women scientists, she is invaluable. Her Roundtable topic is "Science as a Dynamic, Participatory Discipline: the Relationship between Teaching and Research." |
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