1999 Distinguished Teaching Awards

Exceptional university teachers possess common qualities: mastery of subject matter, intellectual rigor, lively curiosity, a commitment to research, and a passion for teaching. What they don’t share is a common style of teaching and mentoring. This year’s award winners have evolved diverse and distinct strategies to engage and inspire their students. Recipients receive $3,500.

Ana Mari Cauce
Professsor of Psychology and American Ethnic Studies (UW Seattle)

Cauce

Ana Mari Cauce chairs the American Ethnic Studies department, runs a highly productive psychology research lab, and serves on two departments’ committees for undergraduate and graduate curriculum development. And still her students report feeling that she always puts them first. Her accessibility and dedication to students reflect her personal values and professional goals. In her 13 years at the UW she’s served as a mentor to hundreds of students drawn to her as a scholar, a role model and an advocate. Cauce views the lab and the classroom as extensions of one another. She shares her passion for research—in child and family development, ethnic socialization and the strengths and problems of minority youth—by hiring students (and only students) to work in her lab. Cauce promotes collaboration: Her students contribute ideas to the project, author papers and attend conferences. In the classroom, Cauce combines inquiry-based practices with opportunities for personal discovery. In an undergraduate course on childhood socialization, “Becoming a Person of Color,” small groups “raise a child” together. Students explore the decisions that parents and children make about who they are and who they will become ethnically. Similarly, Cauce hopes her students can view their own educations as a series of choices they make that will determine who they are.

David H. Collingwood
Professor of Mathematics (UW Seattle)

Collingwood

Ten years ago the math faculty set out to revise its gateway course in precalculus, a massive lecture class of up to 700 undergraduates. To better prepare students for the mathematical modeling they had encountered in calculus, the course content was refocused onto “word problems” and real-life applications. That’s when David Collingwood stepped in, volunteering to turn the large but unstructured collection of problems into a textbook. By the time he finished, he’d accomplished much more. Collingwood convinced the department to reduce class size to 160. He organized weekly meetings for all instructors to discuss teaching strategies and materials. And he introduced role-playing exercises to help graduate teaching assistants prepare to lead their own classes. From 1995 to 1999, Collingwood repeatedly revised the textbook itself, actively seeking critiques and incorporating suggestions from everyone in the department—faculty, teaching assistants and students alike. His collaborative approach produced not only a better instructional tool, but also an ongoing departmental discussion of creative ways to teach mathematics. Students are learning more (76 percent now pass the following calculus course compared to only 7 percent a decade ago), and student ratings for the course instructors are significantly higher. Because Collingwood championed curriculum reform, the classroom experience has changed for the better for every UW precalculus student and instructor.

Anthony Gill
Assistant Professor of Political Science (UW Seattle)

Gill

It took Tony Gill a year to get his bearings in the classroom. Gill now takes pride in the techniques he’s developed over the past four years to teach undergraduate and graduate classes in political economy, Latin American politics, and religion and politics. Tapping a student’s natural curiosity, he believes, is the best way to teach. So he presents his courses as puzzles to be solved and introduces analytical methods and skills as puzzle-solving tools. The challenge is to come up with alternative explanations for social phenomena that can be analyzed using empirical evidence. In larger undergraduate classes he maintains a high level of engagement by giving students “rational riddles”—exercises that link everyday events to more abstract social processes. Why, for example, are many prices set at odd intervals, such as $2.99, instead of an even $3? By hour’s end the discussion has explored the more abstract concept of “principal-agent” interactions and even governmental deployment of police forces. In smaller seminars Gill turns the tables, requiring students to develop their own analytical questions based on weekly reading assignments. Role-playing helps students explore the predicaments and motivation of historical characters. Well known for his animated lecture notes using a laptop computer, Gill’s goal in using digital technology is to draw students toward demanding material and into active class participation.

Resat Kasaba
Associate Professor of International Studies (UW Seattle)

Kasaba

Any undergraduate who intends to major in the Jackson School’s international studies program must take SIS: 200 States and Capitalism: The Origins of the Global System. It’s an introductory lecture course that typically registers 200 students, and chances are Resat Kasaba is teaching it. Not because he has to, but because he wants to. Though he bears heavy administrative duties as the program’s head and has gained an international reputation for his scholarship as an expert on Middle Eastern studies, Kasaba makes teaching a priority. Undergraduates in SIS 200 consistently rate Kasaba’s classes as exceptional: exceptionally difficult, exceptionally unreasonable in workload, and exceptionally inspiring. So do students in his upper-level courses and in his graduate seminars. Kasaba’s also known as an exceptionally kind and supportive teacher. If he overloads students with assignments, he also motivates—and helps—them to do their best work. Students flock to his office to talk, and he welcomes them. His lecture skills are legendary. Though he’s modest in demeanor and speaks in a quiet voice, Kasaba keeps students on the edge of their seats in rapt attention. He uses small discussion sections and study groups to encourage participation and provide individual attention. Last year Kasaba volunteered to lead a special interdisciplinary reading group on modern Turkey for a dozen graduate students. They were so motivated and inspired by Kasaba that—even though their instructor went on leave—the students held the class on their own.

Kevin Laverty
Assistant Professor of Business Administration (UW Bothell)

Laverty

Before he joined UW Bothell as a founding member of the business faculty, Kevin Laverty was a manager in the public sector. He observed there that the most successful people were excellent communicators—those who wrote clearly, spoke effectively and could think on their feet in a variety of settings. He’s put the development of critical thinking and communication skills at the center of his teaching objectives. Whether he’s teaching international business policy, strategic management, the management of technology, or environmental management, Laverty builds his courses on what he calls a three-level “learning pyramid.” The progression moves from understanding the facts (the base of the pyramid), to building facts into models (the middle layer), to knowing which tools and models to use (the top of the pyramid). He employs a corresponding model for leading classroom discussions: refer back to basic principles often, provide unstructured problems for students to solve, and motivate students to look to a wider context—prior courses, personal work experience, non-business disciplines— for helpful insights and analogies. Students feel challenged by Laverty’s classes. They come away feeling confident that they can think independently and can apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to real-life situations in the business world.

Linda McElvey
Senior Lecturer in Business Administration (UW Tacoma)

McElvey

Linda McElvey came to UW, Tacoma three years ago with the assignment of launching an accounting concentration for the business administration program. She’s distinguished herself as a teacher who is committed to helping students prepare for a successful transition into the accounting profession. The CPA exam looms large for McElvey’s students, of course. And she’s received praise from former students who feel their coursework with McElvey was critical to passing the exam. But McElvey also presents a wider professional perspective to students, serving as a mentor and as a role model. She draws on her own varied experiences to understand how she can best help her students. McElvey has worked in a CPA firm, so she’s able to connect classroom examples to real-world situations. And she’s taught not only in a university setting (at a school, like UW Tacoma, with many non-traditional students), but also in the public schools (where she worked with emotionally disturbed students). McElvey appreciates the risk non-traditional students take when they choose to seek new career directions at UW Tacoma. She works diligently and creatively to help them establish a foothold in the accounting profession. One of McElvey’s initiatives—helping students form a campus chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants in the fall of 1996—has succeeded admirably. Each of the last three years the fledgling IMA chapter at UW Tacoma has won national recognition.

June G. Morita
Senior Lecturer in Management Science and Statistics (UW Seattle)

Morita

As a teacher of statistics, June Morita has strikes against her when she enters the classroom. Statistics is a subject many students—especially non-majors—approach with fear, dread, and even resentment. Morita consistently changes her students’ minds and opens them to new possibilities. Case-based instruction makes the difference. Morita is adept at illustrating sophisticated concepts and complicated methods with examples that her students find both interesting and relevant. And she’s nimble on her feet. Students praise her ability to regroup and approach a topic from a different angle if a student can’t grasp her first explanation. She’s been known to show up to Statistics 342 toting an oblong loaf of French bread which she skewers through its long axis and then slices. The point is to reveal to students an unexpected pattern of holes. Students understand and remember forever the statistical distinction between the regression line and standard deviation line. (The cheese she passes around with the sliced bread is another nice touch, though statistically insignificant.) Morita works effectively at all levels of education. She teaches undergraduate and graduate students in the statistics department, MBA and Executive MBA students in the business school, and elementary and secondary school teachers in regional and international quantitative literacy training programs. Her wider audience includes social scientists, engineers and medical researchers. There’s another important way Morita works to break down misconceptions about statistics. In her 14 years at the UW she’s served as an active mentor and inspiring role model for other women who want to join the field. ¶