Dean Cudd announced the winners of the 2016 Templeton Award for Excellence in Student Advising and the 2016 CAS Teaching Awards during the final faculty meeting of the semester on April 27. Congratulations to all!
2016 CAS Teaching Awards
Each year, CAS honors a select group of faculty members for their outstanding work in the classroom—as instructors, motivators, and resources for their students. Congratulations to James Uden, Sarah Phillips, Amy Appleford, Kathryn Spilios, Daniel Dahlstrom, and H. Eugene Stanley. You can read their full award citations here.
THE GITNER AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED TEACHING IN THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
James Uden
Assistant Professor of Classical Studies
Latinist James Uden welcomes students to the world of ancient Rome with true, infectious passion for his subject and with courses whose extraordinary range, bold design, and skillful execution promote active learning at all levels.
Into the formerly chronological Intro to Roman Civ, he has breathed new life by aiming instead for a “street-level view” of the realities of ancient lives, so similar and yet so distant from present-day experience. Innovative assignments to foster habits of empathy and historical precision include diary writing in a Roman persona, where each entry must be backed up by an ancient source. In this new incarnation, enrollment in CL 102 has grown by more than 50 percent.
Likewise broadly and deeply appealing to undergraduates is the course Professor Uden has devised on Ancient Medicine, which takes up ancient ideas of pathology, psychology, pharmacology, veterinary medicine, and nutrition in conjunction with ancient debates about the ethics of contraception, abortion, vivisection, and medical responsibility.
His office door is always open; “he volunteers for everything”; as a role model and mentor for graduate students, he is simply “indispensable.”
THE NEU FAMILY AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING IN THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Sarah T. Phillips
Associate Professor of History
Sarah Phillips excels in her own teaching and embraces academic leadership roles with one and the same overarching goal of seeking ways to empower students as practicing scholars of history.
Stem-to-stern revisions of the History curriculum bear the unmistakable stamp of Professor Phillips’s vision, influence, and effectiveness. As Director of Undergraduate Studies, she led the faculty team that developed a model course to equip freshmen with a historian’s toolkit for framing and answering research questions. Rather than survey the whole history of Boston, HI 190 focuses in depth on three defining moments of community and conflict: witchcraft, immigration, and race. Through collaboration with the Massachusetts Historical Society, the course get students working as hands-on archivists with centuries-old objects, manuscripts, and diaries.
Professor Phillips also led her colleagues in establishing “Honors in the History Major” as a “crown jewel” of undergraduate education. It is largely thanks to her persistent advocacy that CAS now sponsors Honors Research Travel Grants, which history students have put to excellent advantage, in the U.S. and abroad.
For our undergraduates and graduate students alike, Sarah sets a shining example of “unbridled intellectual curiosity,” “unreserved attention,” “incisive” criticism, pinpoint verbal accuracy, and “refreshing” advice to competent writers for writing even better.
THE FRANK AND LYNNE WISNESKI AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING IN THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Amy Appleford
Associate Professor of English and in the Core Curriculum
Amy Appleford is a consummate teacher—intellectually capacious, awesomely effective, innovative, inspiring, generous, and beloved.
Colleagues marvel at the variety, originality, and depth of Professor Appleford’s offerings. Tasked with covering a thousand years of premodern English literature, she has made speedy work of building a repertoire that extends still further—to the history of the English language, Core Humanities from Antiquity through the Renaissance, and pedagogy workshops for first-time graduate teachers. Visitors to her highly participatory classes describe a “brilliant atmosphere of collaborative learning.” She knows how to open up a subject for exploration, how to stand back and let students debate each other, and when to step in to clarify points of confusion.
While fully earning her reputation as a “one-woman curriculum,” Professor Appleford has also emerged as a community builder and leader in the teaching of the humanities at BU.
Professor Appleford’s students benefit twice over from a motivating, challenging teacher and a tirelessly accessible, supportive mentor. Writes one: “I have never had an educator who seemed so dedicated to helping students excel beyond what is necessary for her specific course.” Amy’s 2016 Wisneski Award echoes those superlatives on behalf of the College.
THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES AWARD FOR DISTINCTION IN FIRST YEAR UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
Kathryn Spilios
Lecturer in Biology
The many interlocking responsibilities, initiatives, and achievements of entomologist Kathryn Spilios’s remarkable work to improve the undergraduate first-year experience radiate throughout Biology, CAS, BU, and the national conversation on STEM education.
As director of Biology’s instructional labs, Dr. Spilios impeccably manages all aspects of labs for more than 2,600 students each year, while also serving as faculty coordinator of the introductory biology sequence. In that latter role, she has introduced the use of clickers and other active learning tools. Another of her pedagogical initiatives, contextualizing each lecture topic with a recent journal article, helps students develop scientific literacy in tandem with understanding of the topic. Most fundamentally, she has reconceived the entire first-year laboratory curriculum, replacing “recipe-based” labs where outcomes are predetermined with an inquiry-based lab experience that approximates the activities of real science and promotes critical thinking.
An early implementer of BU’s Learning Assistant program Dr. Spilios now serves as director of its campus-wide leadership board. At regional conferences she co-hosts, faculty from other colleges and universities can receive tools and tips for starting their own LA programs.
On the front lines and behind the scenes, Kathryn relates to students, fellow teachers, and the whole web of her educational efforts with deep personal purpose and true distinction.
THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES DEAN’S AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN GRADUATE EDUCATION
Daniel O. Dahlstrom
John R. Silber Professor of Philosophy
For two decades, Dan Dahlstrom has been a leading light of BU’s graduate program in Philosophy, shining both in the classroom and as a prolific, highly regarded mentor.
Professor Dahlstrom’s teaching draws on wide-ranging, expert knowledge of historical and contemporary work across metaphysics, phenomenology, aesthetics, and ethics. His “incomparably rewarding” seminars are typically packed with students from our own and neighboring departments of philosophy, as well as international visitors hanging on his every word.
Many students who thrive in seminar settings on Professor Dahlstrom’s encouragement choose to complete their dissertations under his gifted, legendarily comprehensive, and effective tutelage. Not only has his dissertation readership reached an impressive total of 57 and counting; all but one of the graduates for whom he served as first reader went on to teaching positions.
What qualities make having Dan for a thesis mentor so extraordinary? Lauren Freeman, now on the tenure track at the University of Louisville, recalls how he always made time to meet with her; how “entirely dedicated” he was to each advisee’s project; and how she gained “the confidence to present her work publicly and succeed in the field” thanks to his urging early in her graduate career to get started on submitting papers to professional conferences.
H. Eugene Stanley
William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and Professor of Physics, Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering, and Physiology
Statistical physicist Gene Stanley has graduated more than 100 PhD students, including an impressive 16 women. Many of that staggering number enjoy immensely successful careers around the globe as senior scientists and rising stars: they hold endowed chairs, direct institutes and chair departments, and win prestigious awards.
Professor Stanley today upholds the same visionary commitment to doctoral education and its inseparability from his path-breaking interdisciplinary research agenda that he brought from MIT to BU nearly 40 years ago. “My sincere wish,” he wrote in 1982, is “to create an intellectually stimulating and emotionally supportive home for graduate students who choose Boston University.”
Professor Stanley has adopted the apprenticeship style of mentoring, involving his students in every aspect of his daily work and international collaborations. His door is always open, and his office is usually shared with one or more students. He engages his dynamic group in attempts to understand such puzzles of science as the structure of water and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
Gene’s new signature courses on econophysics and network science have been instant hits, greeted by students with rave reviews: “amazing, teacher,” “cutting edge,” “great professor, motivates class,” “a beautiful job.”
2015 Templeton Award for Excellence in Student Advising
The recipients of the Templeton Advising Award received strong praise from their advisees for their advice, encouragement, and willingness to go above and beyond to make themselves available to students. Congratulations to Jackie Liederman, Noora Lori, and Nathan Stewart.
Jackie Liederman
Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences
Jackie’s nomination serves as a wonderful example of the impact advisors have on students beyond the classroom. Her nominator stated, “As an academic advisor, Dr. Liederman has gone above and beyond in helping me figure out which classes to take, discussing my career goals and suggesting steps to get there. She has also had a significant impact on my personal life. During the Spring semester of 2014, my father passed unexpectedly after my mother had passed three years prior. Due to his passing, I had to live independently, get full custody of my younger sister, and work enough to financially support the both of us. At the time, I was taking Dr. Liederman’s Physiological Psychology course. She completely understood and connected me with the director at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, where I have gained valuable clinical experience and am still a research assistant today. She also always checked in on my personal life and provided valuable input on that as well. At such a large university, it is difficult to find a faculty member who genuinely cares about you and your success. Fortunately, I was able to find that in Dr. Liederman, especially when I needed it the most.”
Noora Lori
Assistant Professor of International Relations
It is clear in reading Noora’s nominations that she is making an impact on her students through her advising and her teaching. One of her nominators put it well when she stated, “Dr. Lori is an inspiration to me because she is extremely hard-working and committed to making a difference in the lives of her students and in the lives of others in different parts of the world…Her role as my faculty advisor has allowed me to feel supported throughout my thesis process. She gives me the chance to explore new ways of thinking without imposing her opinions on me or my writing.”
Nathan Stewart
Lecturer in Biology
Nathan’s nominators unanimously stated that he truly cared about them and offered guidance for both the short term and life after BU. One student noted, “When I first came to BU, I was a transfer student worried I wouldn’t find my academic niche at school. However, upon meeting my advisor my mind was put at ease…Nathan assured me there was no need to worry… and he helped me design a plan. I also learned a lot of different career paths based on his own work experiences that he shared both in our advising sessions and the classes I took with him.” Another student commented that, “He wasn’t my designated advisor; however, he was my professor for few of my classes and I went to him for academic and non-academic advice. Nathan was understanding…he shared great career suggestions and was always willing to help.”