2001 Department Teaching Awards

Recipients of three new department teaching awards were announced at the department's annual holiday party on Friday, December 7.

Teaching Recognition Award

This year's Teaching Recognition Award goes to Al Schatz for inspiring undergraduate teaching over the course of many years, especially in the engineering calculus sequence, where generations of engineers have learned calculus from a master.

Al has contributed both in the planning and the presentation of the engineering calculus sequence for as long as anyone can remember. In the classroom, he has a special rapport with the students, starting each course with something like "I was once a practicing engineer... but then I learned better.

Always ready with a bad joke, it is easy to lose sight of the substantial impact his teaching has had on his students. To give some idea of this, very recently a current senior member of the engineering faculty recalled, in an unsolicited comment on Al's teaching, how he had come to Cornell one summer while still in high school to take a calculus course. He was lucky enough to end up in Al's class. Looking up at the ceiling and recalling all the things he learned in this course — probably 20 years ago — he exclaimed dreamily, "Schatz was wonderful..." We agree.

Junior Faculty Teaching Award

This year's Junior Faculty Teaching Award goes to Ravi Ramakrishna in recognition of the profound impact he has had on the lives of undergraduate mathematics majors through his teaching and advising.

Graduate Student Teaching Award

This year's recipient of the Graduate Student Teaching Award, Lee Gibson, has shown success and dedication to teaching in the classroom and beyond. He had ideas about how to improve TA training, how to help new TAs develop their skills, how to improve support for Math 111-112 instructors, how to improve the Preparing Future Faculty program, how to recruit new graduate students, and more. But not only does he have ideas, he is willing to do the hard work to try them out, to get others involved and bring improvements to teaching and teacher training in the Mathematics Department.

Last modified:January 22, 2007