Teaching
Awards - May 2000
Speech by Provost Liz Boylan
Francis
Bacon said: "Knowledge is power."
Elbert
Hubbard said: "To know you know is power."
Ruth
Nanda Anshen said: "Knowledge is a process, not
a product."
The
Barnard faculty teach with these precepts in mind,
focusing on the process of learning, on the joys
associated with the acquisition of knowledge, with
the processing of information to make something
new, to discover. Barnard students are active participants
in this quest for knowledge and contribute their
energies and spirit to this special learning environment.
You
don't get to be on the Barnard faculty without being
a demonstrably very good teacher, and you don't
get to stay on the Barnard faculty without being
better than that. So when the time for awarding
citations for teaching excellence comes around,
we know we are in for some difficult decisions.
Today we honor three members of the Barnard faculty
who have distinguished themselves among their peers
in the achievement of excellence in teaching.
It
is not just one trick, not just one style that makes
students say: she changed my world view, or he challenged
me beyond my wildest dreams. Or for a colleague
to say: wow, I would like to be able to engage a
whole class like that.
My
favorite college president turned baseball commissioner,
Bart Giamatti, spoke about teaching as "an instinctual
art, mindful of potential, craving of realizations,
a pausing, seamless process." He was trying to express
the fine balance of intentional strategy, of forward
motion, of personal touch that characterizes an
exemplary teacher. Here are the faculty who have
convinced their peers this year that they are at
the top of their form.
To
start off we have the two winners of the Gladys
Brooks Award for assistant professors in recognition
of their considerable individual achievement in
teaching.
First,
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Kelly Moore. Kelly
came to Barnard in 1993, after receiving her BA,
MA and PhD from the University of Arizona. She has
taught a wide range of courses at Barnard, from
Introduction to Sociology through a graduate course
on the Sociology of Science, with courses on Social
Movements, Organizations, and Religion and Social
Change, in between. Even the sometimes dreaded Quantitative
Methods course has been hers to teach. She gets
consistently high rankings from her students on
the evaluation form queries about instructor's knowledge,
instructor's interest, instructor's effectiveness
in communicating subject matter and would you take
another course with this instructor. And they are
true to their word, since many students go on to
take additional courses with Kelly. One wrote: "I
planned next semester's courses around her course."
On
the open-ended questions, their replies range from:
"She conveys a mastery of her subject without condescension
or pretension." to "Professor Moore is one of the
most fair professors I've ever had. She knows the
material, communicates it in whatever fashion she
can until we, the students, understand it. She makes
learning safe, interesting and fun. By safe, I mean
she makes us feel safe in taking risks."
Adjectives
that many students use to describe Kelly include:
passionate, enthusiastic, thought-provoking, caring.
And as for the aforementioned sometimes dreaded
course in Quantitative Methods, here are some student
comments: "The lectures were interesting and fun.
And many of the assignments were creative and actually
gave me a sense of what it means to do sociological
research." And, "I enjoyed Professor Moore's attitude
and ability to explain things. I actually developed
an interest in research as a result." And "It helped
put sociology into a useful context. I think I've
gained some skills that I can use beyond this course."
And
lest you think she has only one string to her bow,
let me also make note of the work she has done to
complete a book entitled Political Protest and Institutional
Change: American Science and the New Left, 1955-1980,
and articles such as "The Origins of the American
Anti-Vietnam War Movement," and "Getting Rid of
God: The Secularization in American Science," plus
her steadfast service to the community as a member
of the Faculty Finance and the Barnard Library and
Academic Information Services Committees, and as
Faculty Representative to the Board of Trustees,
and many more. Congratulations, Kelly.
And
for the second winner of the Gladys Brooks Award
this year, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Reshmi Mukherjee. This is Reshmi's third year teaching
at Barnard, although she was returning to her old
neighborhood when she joined us in 1997. After receiving
her Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Presidency
College of the University of Calcutta, Reshmi then
earned her master's and Ph.D. degrees in the Physics
Department of Columbia University. After finishing
at Columbia, she spent four years as a Research
Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
and then a year as Visiting Scientist at McGill
University.
Reshmi
was hired to take charge of the two semester introductory
calculus-based physics sequence for majors, and
that she has done, revising lectures and laboratories
in Mechanics and in Optics, Electricity and Magnetism.
Adjectives and phrases such as accessible, responsive,
friendly, receptive to questions, helpful, enthusiastic,
and very motivated are found repeatedly among student
comments at the end of the semester. One put it
bluntly as: "I only took physics because I had to,
but the professor really made this class a lot better
for me. I have recommended this course to other
pre-meds." Another was really into it: "Professor
Mukherjee is definitely one of the best professors
I've had. She rocks! The course was interesting
and has definitely helped in other courses. I enjoyed
learning physics." One student summed it all up
very economically: "She's amazing."
In
the short time she has been here, Reshmi has already
mentored a number of Barnard undergraduates in research,
and has supported them as co-presenters at the American
Astronomical Society meetings in January 1999 and
2000. Her work is on high-energy gamma rays from
astrophysical sources - stuff that is way, way out
there. She is and has been part of large, multi-institutional
research teams bonded by wonderful acronyms such
as AGATE, STACEE and EGRET. These are not marbles,
girl's names or white birds - they are group projects
at the leading edge of her field, and she is preparing
her students to be part of the next generation of
astrophysicists.
She
is the Physics Department's resident computer consultant
and has developed web pages for her courses and
the department. She also continues to serve as the
College's Space Grant Director of the NASA/New York
State Space Grant Consortium based at Cornell. Congratulations,
Reshmi.
And
now to the one award given to a worthy representative
of all of the other full-time faculty who are not
assistant professors. We again have funding from
the Bank of New York, so I am pleased to announce
that this year's Bank of New York/Barnard Award
for Teaching Excellence for a member of the faculty
who has made a difference in the teaching climate
of the College goes to Gail Archer.
Gail
has been Director of Barnard's Music Program since
1994 and Director of the Barnard-Columbia Chorus
since 1988. Her nominator for this award summarized
her as the professor who "combines scholarship,
practice and teaching at a high level and dizzying
pace." One only has to be in her presence for moments
before being drawn in by the energy field that is
Gail.
Her
college level training began at Montclair State
College in Music Education, followed by Master's
degrees, first in Piano from Hartt College of the
University of Hartford and then in Choral Conducting
from the Mannes School of Music. In 1995 she earned
her Doctorate of Musical Arts in Organ Performance
from our neighbor, the Manhattan School of Music,
and in September, she will be undertaking an Artist's
Diploma program at the Boston Conservatory. She
wears many hats here, concertizer, choral director,
academic adviser, administrator and teacher.
And
perhaps the thread that runs through all these roles
is her fierce, and I mean fierce, devotion to her
students. She pours her heart into her work and
derives such pride from her students' achievements.
The virtually universal descriptor of Gail in the
classroom is "enthusiastic," and one student expressed
her appreciation this way: "The instructor was very
knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and made somewhat
dull stuff seem interesting. (I refer to Gregorian
chants and organs.) She's a great teacher. I just
happen to not like organs, personally." Let me read
you also the words of a colleague, a certain resident
physicist whose avocations include the piano and
choral performance. He said he went to a rehearsal
of the Barnard-Columbia Chorus in September 1998
just to see what it was like , and kept going mainly
because of Gail's rehearsal style, describing it
as "very efficient, charismatic and aiming for a
high standard of technical precision." And he continued
saying, "At the same time as maintaining a thoroughly
professional standard for herself," she has the
gift "of giving herself entirely to the amateur
spirit. She is inspirational, indefatigable, incredibly
tolerant, and in the final analysis, successful."
And
beyond the College gates, Gail is a great ambassador
for Barnard, recruiting students from all over,
recently speaking at a College Colloquium held at
Sarah Lawrence, being thanked by the organizers
for her well-received talk and her willingness to
participate in educational activities for young
people. So let us celebrate the achievements of
Gail Archer.
A
note on the process this year. We are grateful to
the divisional groups of department chairs who met
together for the first time this spring to vet nominations
which were then considered by the ATP, with the
consultation of Dean Karen Blank. All those who
had a hand in the selection process this year are
due a large measure of thanks on behalf of all of
us. So to the worker bees who generated these nominations,
to Kathryn Johnson, this year's Emily Gregory Award
winner, and to this afternoon's honorees: Kelly
Moore, Reshmi Mukherjee and Gail Archer, let's all
join in a final rousing round of applause.
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