Every year, the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts’ Executive Committee selects a subset of newly-promoted faculty with outstanding teaching records for special recognition: the Class of 1923 Memorial Teaching Award for promotions to associate professor with tenure, and the John Dewey Award for promotions to full professor with tenure.

“I am delighted to announce that this year, we have two EEB winners,” said Professor and Chair Diarmaid Ó Foighil. “Please join me in congratulating Tim James, a 2015 Class of 1923 Memorial Teaching Award winner and Trisha Wittkopp, a 2015 John Dewey Award winner.”

Regarding James the LSA Executive Committee wrote: “The Executive Committee was impressed by your eloquent teaching statement, with its emphasis on student mentoring, your continuous record of improvement over time, and your combination of rigor, creativity and engagement. In particular, committee members appreciated your responsiveness to student feedback and to patterns of student learning as well as your ability to identify problem areas and to tweak course materials and pedagogical styles to address them. We were also impressed by your commitment to improving the quality of undergraduate education not only across your department but also within the field in general in and through your advocacy work with the Mycological Society of America.”

Regarding Wittkopp, the LSA Executive Committee wrote: “I am delighted to inform you that your colleagues on the LSA Executive Committee have selected you to receive the 2015 John Dewey Award for your ongoing commitment to the education of undergraduate students. Committee members were impressed by the high quality of your teaching statement , with its stress on teaching students how to use information to solve problems in novel settings using a variety of evidence-based techniques. They were also impressed by your ongoing efforts to transform the teaching of introductory STEM courses such as BIO 305 in your department, at the U-M and nationally.”

 

 

Additionally, Professor Greg Dick, won the 2015 Award for Outstanding Individual Contributions to Undergraduate Education. The award is given in recognition of Greg's outstanding performance in and dedication to the educational experience of undergrads. The award recognizes faculty members who are exceptionally dedicated to the educational experiences of undergraduates, and who demonstrate this dedication through achievements and innovations in their own and others’ classrooms or academic programs.