Dec 24, 2009
Media contact: Anne Russell
Cell: 604-798-3709
Office: 604-795-2826
anne.russell@ufv.ca
UFV looks to honour outstanding university teacher
Were you inspired by an outstanding teacher at UFV? Now’s your chance to recognize and honour that special person by nominating him or her for UFV’s Teaching Excellence Award.
Current UCFV students, alumni, faculty, and staff are all eligible to nominate someone for this award, which is conferred at UCFV’s annual convocation ceremonies in June.
Those eligible for nomination include all UFV faculty members and lab instructors who have completed two years of instruction or sessional instructors who have completed the equivalent time.
Selection criteria include mentorship, attention to student learning in the instructional environment and in coursework, respect for students, and exemplary scholarship and professionalism.
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| Past winners Adrienne Chan and Sven van de Wetering. |
Past recipients of the award include Sven van de Wetering, Adrienne Chan, Darryl Plecas, Wendy Burton, George McGuire, Elvira Warner, George Melzer, Greg Anderson, and Katherine Watson.
The 2009 winner of the award, psychology professor Sven van de Wetering, attributed his success to never stopping thinking of himself as a student, and of students as fellow human beings.
Recalling that one of UFV’s earlier teaching excellence recipients, physicist George McGuire, would bring props to class to illustrate concepts, van de Wetering said that he views himself as a human prop, or psychology’s equivalent of a medical school anatomy dummy.
“I often use myself as an example in a humble, self-deprecating way, and admit to my own faults,” he says. “I don’t bring a box of props or tricks, but I stand before them as a complete person, and a model of what an educated person can be, reflecting both strengths and
weaknesses. I do hear that my students like me, and I like them too. I think it’s important to have good rapport and to see them as people with full lives outside the classroom.”
Here’s what one nominator had to say about 2008 winner Adrienne Chan of Social Work and Human Services:
“I felt compelled to nominate Dr. Adrienne Chan for the Teaching Excellence award due to her outstanding qualities … including her ability to stimulate and awaken critical thinking within her students and her contribution towards mentoring future social workers, who will undoubtedly carry their learning with them into practice.”
If you’d like to nominate an outstanding UFV teacher for this award, find out about the process at: www.ufv.ca/senate/awards/tea.htm . The deadline is Tues, January 15.
