Campus honors faculty for excellence in teaching

American historian Henry Brooks Adams observed almost a century ago that teachers influence eternity. They never can tell, he said, where their influence stops.

In keeping with Adams’ wisdom, the UW–Madison honors classroom masters across campus with annual awards for teaching excellence. Recipients each receive an award of $5,000. They will be honored at a ceremony and reception at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 27, in the Memorial Union Play Circle.

This year’s recipients are:

Martha Alibali
Associate professor of psychology and educational psychology
Chancellor’s Award

Alibali’s students routinely change their learning style from absorbing existing information to creating knowledge.

The key to that metamorphosis is particip- ation, she says. “Many of the classes that I teach are undergraduate seminars — small courses involving discussions of original material. In these settings, I work to create an atmosphere in which all students, even those who are reserved, feel safe to contribute their ideas.”

Her own research contributions strike at the very center of our understanding of learning: How do humans incorporate new knowledge with old? How do we generate new approaches to solving problems? What particular factors influence the course of knowledge acquisition? She applies lessons learned from research into her classroom curriculum.

Alibali makes both herself and her lab available to undergraduates who are engaged in research. “My own undergraduate research experience had a profound effect on my development and career path,” she says. “Conducting research is a terrific way for students to become active learners and creators of new knowledge.”

Steven D. Burke
Professor of chemistry
Emil H. Steiger Award

Active undergraduate learning and self-discovery are abundant in Burke’s organic chemistry classroom.

“My teaching style is highly interactive, focusing less on facts than how to use them to explain why organic molecules behave the way they do,” he says.

For Burke, dividing the students into small groups helps them assimilate the unifying principles they then use when encountering the challenging puzzles Burke asks them to solve. Examinations, too, are tools of learning. “They are not multiple choice, so students must reach a level of understanding that allows them to generate in a big, blank space fully formulated answers to problems,” he says.

Like the principles of organic chemistry, the rules of good teaching remain relatively constant regardless of the subject, he says.

“Remember you are likely to be teaching something at which you are unusually good, and that most of your students will have neither your aptitude nor your level of devotion, at least not yet,” he says. “Be aware of needing to reach students whose interests and abilities are developing, and take pleasure in transferring some of your enthusiasm to them.”

Monika Chavez
Associate professor of German
Class of 1955 Award

It’s not the subject or the class. For Chavez, excellence in teaching means a particular reflection of her approach to people.

And that approach includes plenty of individual attention. “I hope that my teaching defies a general description. I really like to think of each class as unique in the students, their goals for the class and its general feel. This variability is what makes teaching a true human encounter,” she says.

Consequently, Chavez spends hours in individual consultation with her students, who range from beginning German-language students, to graduate students in German linguistics, to those who intend to teach German in college themselves.

“Some of the research about how language is learned and used is inconclusive. Learners hopefully realize that my opinion is an opinion, and they may disagree with it. Ultimately, I would like to be able to help them to be able to agree or disagree with me and my colleagues in an informed and intelligent manner,” she says.

Michael T. Collins
Professor of pathobiological sciences
Van Hise Outreach Award

Dairy farms are Collins’ classroom, although he also teaches in more orthodox settings. “I take veterinary students with me to farms every chance possible. They learn more with boots on,” he says.

Collins, an expert in a microbe that is the scourge of dairy cattle, says that he, too, learns from farm producers and practicing veterinarians. They provide critical perspectives on his own research.

“I need to find out if my diagnostic tests actually work in the field. This leads me back and forth — from the lab to the farm, and back to the lab, to test and retest new methods for the diagnosis and control of Johne’s disease, possibly a factor in Crohn’s disease in humans,” he says.

And when he finds something of use to dairies, he wants to make sure farm owners know about it quickly. He launched a Web site on Johne’s disease (http://johnes.org), and helped the School of Veterinary Medicine create http://VetMedCE.org.

“My strength as a teacher and researcher, and my challenge as a person, is my passion for my profession,” he says. “I have no real hobbies outside of my work … which makes me a bore at parties, although I do get kind of lively if you mention Johne’s disease.”

David S. Danaher
Assistant professor of Slavic languages and literature
Kiekhofer Award

Danaher took Russian in high school to counteract the stultifying experience of growing up gay in an American suburb.

“Russia epitomized everything that my typical American suburb was not, and that difference attracted me,” he says.

He broadened his linguistic scope to include Czech. Today he teaches all comers in either language.

His departmental chair, Benjamin Rifkin, credits Danaher with reviving the department’s Czech language and literature program, and enhancing the university’s study-abroad program in Prague.

“My plan is to develop the Czech language program at UW–Madison as much as I can, specifically to expand course offerings in Czech literature,” Danaher says.

An important part of that plan is Danaher’s development of support materials for the classroom, including films and songs for Czech instruction. Another strategic aspect is his outreach to Wisconsin’s Czech community through the November Fund, which supports the teaching of Czech language and culture at UW–Madison.

Evelyn Howell
Professor of landscape architecture
Chancellor’s Award

For Howell, there is no adventure greater than teaching at UW–Madison.

“I like to discover things right along with my students. Our classes often work with real ecosystem restorations and field experiments, so I often learn right along with the students as we collect data and analyze results,” she says.

Howell’s classes range from a basic introduction to landscape architecture to restoration ecology, and from ecology and genetics to a graduate seminar in regional landscape design. She says her field is doubly interesting because it sits at the crossroads of art and science.

“It is very stimulating to try to match my approach to different levels of intellectual sophistication and critical thinking ability, and to learning and creativity styles ranging from visual to symbolic to linear,” she says.

Regardless of the course, its level or the students, Howell goes out of her way to present material in unexpected formats. In addition to the meat-and-potatoes lecture, and the try-it-yourself labs and discussion sections, she often employs games like charades and trivia contests.

“Students tell me that they remember the answers to game questions more than anything else,” she says, noting that perhaps it is the fabulous prizes that players can win. (Chocolate is always the favorite.)

Christopher Kleinhenz
Professor of French and Italian
Chancellor’s Award

Poet Dante Alighieri, one of Kleinhenz’s scholarly specialties, advised in “The Divine Comedy” to follow your star — your destiny — to reach a “glorious haven.”

Kleinhenz’s star clearly pointed to medieval Italian literature and culture. Universally described as a teacher who can hold learners’ attention, he uses an interdisciplinary pedagogical technique to catch and hold interest.

“I have a particular interest in the relationship between literature and art. My participation in study-abroad programs, and Wisconsin Alumni Association tours in Italy and elsewhere, has allowed me to develop on-site teaching strategies that rely not only on the reading of literary works but also on direct observation of their historical and material contexts,” he says.

Kleinhenz believes strongly that professional involvement enhances his teaching. As president of the American Association of Teachers of Italian, he led a successful campaign to create an advanced placement course in Italian for the nation’s high schools. He also worked to provide continuing education opportunities for teachers of Italian in North America. Since 2000 he has been an active member of WisItalia, a nonprofit organization that promotes the study of all things Italian in this state.

James A. Rappold
Assistant professor of operations management
Chancellor’s Award

Theory and practice fuse seamlessly in Rappold’s classroom.

He cut his teaching chops on business leaders at Briggs and Stratton, General Motors and Philip Morris. Using his corporate experiences to motivate students, he is a devout practitioner of active learning and teaching.

“Operations and supply-chain management is a subject that requires students to comprehend complex relationships, interactions and dynamics with many different variables in environments rife with uncertainty.” he says. “Therefore, I focus on creating a learning environment where students experience that material for themselves and are able to see where their intuition is helpful, and where it may get them into trouble.”

Rappold says activities outside the classroom facilitate the learning process.

“I regularly take a number of students each year on field trips to manufacturing sites in the United States as well as in Europe,” he says. “It’s important to expose students to these environments as often as possible so that they can witness for themselves how difficult it is to solve the complex problems that plague manufacturers.”

Michael J. Smith
Robert Ratner Professor of Industrial Engineering
Chancellor’s Award

Smith personifies the legacy of teaching teachers. He credits his graduate adviser at UW–Madison, K.U. Smith (no relation), with instilling a pedagogical vision.

“He was an inspiring teacher, researcher and activist for many causes on and off campus,” says Michael Smith.

Smith is passing his considerable teaching acumen along to new teachers. His graduate advisees have attracted national attention for their contributions to engineering instruction itself and for their research on issues confronting the discipline, notably barriers to fuller participation in engineering by minorities and women.

Smith points out emphatically that a premiere teacher goes far beyond the presentation of fact and theory.

“Learning also needs to include an understanding of the benefits of facts, methods, calculations and procedures for making a better world, for behaving ethically and for giving back to society for what has been given,” he says. His courses often land at the intersection of science and social sciences. “This gives me the opportunity to discuss values and ethics along with theories, models and factual information,” he says.

Karen B. Strier
Professor of anthropology
Chancellor’s Award

Strier teaches “big question” classes: biological anthropology related to what it means to be human, and humans’ relationships to the rest of the natural environment.

“In each of my classes, I strive to connect material we’re covering to broader topics in which the students are interested or with which they have some familiarity,” she says.

“My aim is to challenge students to think about what they are learning, to question their assumptions and to integrate new ideas within their own knowledge basis and experiences,” Strier says.

She teaches freshman-level courses and upper-level seminars, and advises undergraduates in anthropology, zoology and the biological aspects of conservation major. She also advises Brazilian students who participate in her South Amerian field studies in primate behavioral ecology and conservation.

“My research gives me a comparative world and species perspective that I draw on in my classes here,” she says. “My affiliations with the Brazilian students have given me a better sense of the diversity of student backgrounds and ways of learning that I encounter here in Madison.”