A&S Faculty Honored for Distinguished Teaching: Stanley Chernicoff, Robin Wright, Gerald Baldasty
Tomlinson Honored for Teaching Excellence
Wiegand Brings Science into the Community
Hurley Receives Distinguished Staff Award
CHID Honored with Brotman Award
McHugh's Double Play
Listing of Additional A&S Awards and Honors

A&S Faculty Honored for Distinguished Teaching

UW Distinguished Teaching Award recipients (from left) Stan Chernicoff, Robin Wright, and Jerry Baldasty. Photo by Petter Goldstine.

With its Distinguished Teaching Award, the UW Alumni Association (UWAA) honors a handful of faculty each year for their exceptional teaching. This year, three Distinguished Teaching Award recipients—selected on the basis of recommendations from colleagues and students—are based in Arts and Sciences.

Stanley Chernicoff: Shrinking the University
As a political science major in college, Stan Chernicoff didn’t take a science course until his senior year. But he was intrigued enough to continue his geology studies as a graduate student, even while enrolled in law school. After two years of that arduous pursuit, science won. He gave up law, devoting his attention to a doctorate in geology. Chernicoff didn’t just want to learn geology; he wanted to share it with countless students who, like him, were leery of science.

“I think one of the reasons I connect with students in my classes is because I was them. And in some ways I still am,” he said. “You have to find a place where kids with a science background aren’t bored and yet you don’t scare the kids with no background.”

Chernicoff has connected with literally tens of thousands of students since he began teaching at the UW. He is renowned for learning—and remembering years later—the names of most of the 400 or more students who pack his lecture halls most quarters. His idea is to create, within the large and sometimes impersonal university, a small-college feel.

“He truly cares about the individuality of each student and tries to make his large lecture classes seem as intimate as seminars,” comments Terry Swanson, also a geological sciences senior lecturer.

Chernicoff recently added a new role: assistant athletic director for academic services. Clay Schwenn, who took Chernicoff’s Geology 101 class as an undergraduate and now works with him as a counselor with Student Athlete Academic Services, speaks glowingly of Chernicoff’s “open-door policy that goes beyond office hours.”

“I am continually amazed at how he manages to keep himself fresh for the crush of kids that come around,” says Schwenn. “He is the person our parents hoped we would meet when they sent us off to college.”

Robin Wright: Putting a Human Face on Science
Robin Wright believes she became a better teacher when she realized that the oft repeated “Is this going to be on the test?” was actually a question of, “Why should we care?”

That’s why Wright, associate professor of zoology, strives to put a face on the basic science of cell biology and genetics. In one class, for example, Wright reads from a book by a father whose daughter dies of cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that affects one’s ability to breathe.

As students delve into cell structure and function, they learn that the symptoms of real people may be the result of a single genetic defect. For a disease like cystic fibrosis, Wright helps the students understand that figuring out the one thing that’s happening in the cells could lead to a cure.

“Robin has the invigorating ability to constantly try novel approaches to teaching,” says Linda Martin-Morris, who oversees the laboratory component of Biology 100. “Each quarter I can anticipate a barrage of suggestions [from her] about how we might alter the curriculum, or the physical set-up, or the classroom dynamics in a way that would be more effective.”

Along with the innovations she brings to her teaching, Wright also puts in long hours. When she teaches Biology 100, for example, she attends every lab section—that’s six different sections that meet for two hours every week. “Her passion for her work was so apparent throughout the quarter that I would have been insulting her by not putting forth my best effort,” comments one undergraduate.

Wright is also the guiding force behind the Howard Hughes Undergraduate Education program, which brings undergraduates into faculty research laboratories. Her own lab is visited by “swarms of undergraduates” every year, according to a researcher on the same floor in Kincaid Hall. In addition, Wright is actively involved in running outreach programs to establish ties between the UW, high schools, and community colleges.

Gerald Baldasty: Responding to Students
It’s the students who drive Gerald Baldasty, professor of communications. They motivated him to develop a more multicultural approach to his teaching. They motivate him to stay on top of popular culture. And their accomplishments in his classroom and beyond fill him with great pride.

“Everything I’ve done over the course of my teaching career has been done in response to students,” says Baldasty. “They are central.”

When Baldasty noticed the increasing diversity of students in his classes, he sought ways to respond to the changing face of the student body. The result was several new courses that explore race and gender portrayals in the media.

“I have never been so impressed, stimulated or changed by any course I’ve taken at UW,” comments a student who took Baldasty’s “Ethnicity, Gender, and Media” class. “He treated delicate subjects with the utmost diplomacy and yet intellectually pushed us all to think differently about the world around us.”

To relate to students on their terms, Baldasty tries to stay well versed in the media world of the average undergraduate, using popular culture to make larger points about the media. So rather than leave his job behind at the end of the day, he heads home to the television where he’ll “work” by tuning in to shows that ultimately help him in the classroom.

Baldasty also tries to involve all students in the learning process, whether the class is a huge lecture hall or a small seminar, whether the student is a high-achiever or just average. And he takes great pleasure in some of the less obvious success stories.

“I had a student—I guess you would describe him as a C-plus student,” Baldasty recalled. “He worked really hard and through his own energy came out of the class with a B. Those are the moments I remember and feel the best about. With an A student, you just get out of the way. But I get a real sense of satisfaction when I can help a student fully exploit his or her own abilities. That’s very rewarding.”

Tomlinson Honored for Teaching Excellence
“What can you give to express your gratitude to a teacher who has made such an impression on your life?” asks one student who took a course from Stephanie Tomlinson, teaching assistant (TA) in speech communication.

How about the University’s Award for Teaching Excellence? Tomlinson recently received the honor, awarded annually to outstanding UW teaching assistants.

Tomlinson says she pursued teaching to make a positive difference in the lives of her students. “That’s what keeps me going,” she says. “Now that I’m in, I’m hooked!”

She takes particular satisfaction in reaching the more tentative or reluctant students. She recalls a student in her public speaking class who was extremely apprehensive about the idea of getting up in front of her classmates to give a speech. Tomlinson worked extensively with her, “and when she finally got up and gave her speech in front of the class, that was extremely rewarding for me. That’s when I realized I really was making a difference.”

Tomlinson’s efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. Speech Communication Professor Ann Staton calls Tomlinson “a superb teacher…who engages students intellectually and challenges them, not only to understand course material, but to apply it. She brings ideas to life, finds the relevance in them, and encourages her students to do the same.”

Tomlinson returns the compliment, crediting Staton, her mentor, for much of her success. “She’s an incredible teacher,” says Tomlinson. “If I can touch someone’s life even half as much as she has touched mine, then I will be successful.” Tomlinson is the third of Staton’s TAs to win the Excellence in Teaching Award.

Wiegand Brings Science into the Community
If you don’t think community service is an integral part of science, just ask Deborah Wiegand, senior lecturer in chemistry. Wiegand pioneered science service learning in the UW Department of Chemistry in 1994, and more than 1,000 students have taken part. For her efforts, she has been awarded the S. Sterling Munro Public Service Faculty Fellowship.

Debbie Wiegand, right, and some of her students collect samples at Ravenna Creek as part of a service learning project. Photo by Mary Levin.

Through a series of service-learning chemistry courses developed by Wiegand, UW students have led hands-on science projects in elementary schools, mentored at-risk kids in science activities, monitored water quality in area streams, and helped high school teachers in DNA sequencing projects. The Association of American Colleges and Universities has acclaimed Wiegand’s approach as a national model.

“The service experience adds a dimension that has to do with the role of science and scientists in society,” explains Wiegand. “It’s a goal for our students to feel more connected to the community and see themselves as scientists who can contribute to the community.”

Anna Horton, a UW senior majoring in zoology, expected to spend just one quarter in service learning. But that quarter in an elementary school was so rewarding that she stayed in the program three years. “Debbie taught me about the value and necessity of service to others and the importance of bringing science back into the community,” says Horton.

Chemistry professor Joe Norman Jr. adds that Wiegand’s vision came at a time when the only service learning examples involved high school tutoring. “She saw service learning as a vehicle to engage undergraduates actively in science,” he says. “She expands students’ vision to include issues of scientific literacy, ethics, and objectivity as well as political and social influences on community scientific decisions. This approach to service learning in the sciences remains unique today.”

Hurley Receives Distinguished Staff Award
“Although ethical considerations would prevent me from performing this experiment, if I could clone one human being, it would be Dave Hurley,” says Robin Wright, assistant professor of zoology. In May, Hurley—as yet uncloned—received the UW Distinguished Staff Award for his excellent work.

Hurley’s job title is senior computer specialist, but his colleagues prefer to call him an educator. In addition to overseeing the computer study area in Hitchcock Hall, where banks of computers and study tables are used by up to 200 students a day, he writes computer software for teachers in the biology program. He believes that many biological processes are easier to visualize as 3-D images on a computer rather than on a page of text, especially if there are many things happening at once.

Case in point: Hurley and Biology 201 instructors recently developed a simulation that allows students to visualize the sequence of events in DNA replication. The program is used by colleges and high schools across the nation, and even in some foreign countries.

“Dave speaks ordinary language, not ‘computerese,’ and he has incredible patience,” comments Barbara Wakimoto, director of the Biology Program. “My faculty colleagues have commented on how his warm enthusiasm and incredible creativity made what they thought was impossible for them to learn or design turn into reality.”

Hurley also sets up hardware for laboratories, comes running to the lecture hall when the data projector is not working, holds workshops for students to learn computer basics, advises professors on the use of educational software, and more. Even with these many demands, says Linda Martin-Morris, a lecturer with the Biology Program, she always hears back from him the same day she places a request. “Doesn’t it sound like I’m describing more than one person!?” she asks.

In a way, with programming expertise and efficiency, Hurley has cloned himself.

CHID Honored with Brotman Award
Since its low-key origins in the 1970s, the Comparative History of Ideas Program (CHID) has grown into one of the UW’s most popular majors, an intellectual and social haven for more than 150 undergraduates. This year, CHID is being recognized with a UW Brotman Award for Instructional Excellence.

CHID is a program, not a department, and its director, John Toews, likes it that way. In fact he has resisted proposals to form a regular academic department, preferring the flexibility to find faculty who fit shifting needs and interests.

The program provides a supportive yet intellectually challenging community within the University. When it comes to expressing their opinions, CHID majors are known for being, well, forthright.

Michael Halleran, divisional dean for arts and humanities, says CHID students made his Classics 322 course “among the more exciting and intellectually stimulating in my 20 years of teaching.”

CHID students are increasingly venturing far from home to study in such places as Berlin, Zimbabwe, Prague, and Rome. The study trips — usually in groups of about 15 plus a faculty member — fit CHID’s core intellectual theme of studying the ways in which diverse identities can be understood and interpreted.

“As soon as I began taking CHID courses, my grades and performance in all my classes improved dramatically,” comments senior Julie Renae Johnson. “The rigor demanded by CHID creates an immense passion for taking responsibility for your own learning and education.”

“We all talk about student-centered learning these days,” says Halleran, “but for more than two decades CHID has exemplified this ideal.”

McHugh’s Double Play
Heather McHugh, Milliman Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the UW since 1984, has twice the cause to celebrate this spring.

First McHugh won the 2000 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. The $5,000 award is given in even-numbered years to a poet whose work represents a “notable and accomplished presence in American literature” and who has fulfilled his or her “exceptional” early promise.

Upon learning of her win, McHugh joked that her first reaction was “How depressing. It’s all downhill from here.”

Evidently not. McHugh soon learned she had also been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

McHugh is no stranger to the limelight. A poet, translator, and essayist, she has been a Guggenheim Fellow and Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Writers Award winner and was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 1999. Her book Hinge and Sign: Poems 1968-1993 was named a National Book Award finalist and New York Times “Best Book” of 1994.

Additional Awards, Honors, and Professorships

Herbert Blau, joining the faculty as professor of English in September 2000, has been named Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professor of the Humanities.

J. Michael Brown, professor and chair of the Geophysics Program, has been elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.

Stanley Fields, professor of genetics and medicine and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Fields also won the prestigious Chiron Corporation Biotechnology Award.

Jack Haney, professor and chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, has received a Fulbright-Hays research award, which he will spend in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and the Czech Republic doing research for volumes five and six of The Complete Russian Folktale.

Wick Haxton, director of the Institute for Nuclear Theory, has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2000, which he will use for studies in nucleosynthesis induced by sub-atomic particles called neutrinos.

Stephen Hinds, professor and chair of the Department of Classics, was selected to participate in the Entretiens (conversation) run by the Foundation Harte in Geneva, to discuss some aspect of ancient society or literature. Election to this group is a presitgious honor.

Charles Johnson, S. Wilson and Grace M. Pollock Professor of Creative Writing, received the Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award from the Corporate Council for the Arts.

Joel Kingsolver, professor of zoology, has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2000.

Lillian C. McDermott, professor of physics, and Paula Heron, assistant professor of physics, have received the Archie Mahan Prize from the Optical Society of America for the best feature article in Optics & Photonics News.

James D. Murray, professor of applied mathematics, has been elected a Foreign Member of the French Academy of Sciences—one of only two scientists so honored worldwide.

Luana Ross, associate professor of women studies, won the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association for Inventing the Savage: The Social Construction of Native American Criminality.

David Thouless, professor of physics, was awarded the 2000 Lars Onsager Prize by the American Physical Society. Thouless was honored for introducing (with a colleague from Brown University) the theory of topical phase transitions and for fundamental contributions to the understanding of electron localization and the behavior of spin glasses.

John M. Wallace, professor of atmospheric sciences, has been elected as a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Science.

Shirley Yee, associate professor and chair of the Department of Women Studies, has received the Humanities Alumni Award of Distinction from The Ohio State University.

Younan Xia, assistant professor of chemistry, has received the Victor K. LaMer Award from the Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry of the American Chemical Society and a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation. He also has been named Research Fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The Department of Atmospheric Sciences has received the GPSS Gold Star Department Award from the UW’s Graduate and Professional Student Senate for excellence in student services for the 1999-2000 academic year.

[Summer 2000 - Table of Contents]