Eight faculty members received awards at the end of the 2005-06 academic year in recognition of their outstanding work in teaching and advising. Each winner received a cash award and had his or her name placed on a brick in Mentors’ Circle near the Morris Library.

The excellence-in-teaching awards, which are based primarily on student evaluations, were presented to Brian P. Ackerman, professor of psychology; Robert A. Denemark, associate professor of political science and international relations; Alan D. Fox, associate professor of philosophy; and Carol E. Henderson, associate professor of English.

Mohsen Badiey, the marine studies professor who led the awards selection committee, says a record number of students cast online ballots for their favorite professors.

Ackerman, who joined the faculty in 1977, currently is one of three co-researchers involved in a longitudinal study of the emotional development of disadvantaged children. The children were recruited from Delaware Head Start programs at ages 4 and 5 and now have completed ninth grade.

Ackerman recalls that when Helen Gouldner, then dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, hired him as an assistant professor, she told him he would be expected to be a star researcher and a star teacher. “She said, ‘We really take teaching seriously here,’” he says. “And, that’s what attracted me to Delaware.”

Denemark, who is researching multilateral cooperation among governments, came to UD as an assistant professor in 1988 and was selected for a Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1992. He says he patterns his research teams on the model used by researchers in the natural sciences—teams that include faculty, graduate students and undergraduates as full participants.

“As soon as you convince them that you really do want their input, the undergraduates are very vibrant, helpful and productive members of research groups,” Denemark says.

Fox, who joined the faculty in 1990, is a magician in the classroom. Literally.

A former Fulbright-Hays Taiwan scholar, he is a trained magician, tap dancer and former professional folk singer who says a lot of teaching is being a showman. And, he adds, one of the greatest joys of his job is seeing the thrill students experience from learning.

“One student once said, ‘I can feel the neurons growing in my brain during class,’” Fox says. “Another said, ‘You can feel the learning going on as if it were palpable.’”

Henderson, who has been teaching at UD for 10 years, is the author of Scarring the Black Body: Race and Representation in African American Literature and editor of the upcoming Go Tell It on the Mountain: Historical and Critical Essays. She teaches Bible study at her church and conducts seminars on language in hip-hop and in literature at area high schools.

“People forget that language is a breathing, living entity. I remind students that there’s power in language and how you use it,” Henderson says.
Also honored in May were three faculty members who received UD’s excellence-in-undergraduate-academic-advising awards and a fourth who received the Outstanding (Doctoral) Graduate Student Advising and Mentoring Award.

The awards for undergraduate advising went to Norma L. Gaines-Hanks, assistant professor of individual and family studies; Georgia B. Pyrros, instructor in mathematical sciences; and Todd D. Royer, assistant professor of health, nutrition and exercise sciences. The graduate advising award was presented to Marian Palley, professor of political science and international relations.

Gaines-Hanks, who joined the faculty in 1989 as an assistant dean, currently serves as coordinator of undergraduate programs, in addition to her assistant professor position.

She conducts extensive community outreach and is researching student reaction to working in culturally diverse environments.

Pyrros, a two-time past winner of the excellence-in-teaching award, uses Socratic dialogue and interactive teaching to motivate her students in large calculus classes. Her research interests include applied calculus for business and economics and for life and health sciences.

Royer, a co-investigator on a National Institutes of Health grant researching the effectiveness of in-shoe orthoses, also conducts research in biomechanics and energetics of gait and amputee locomotion. He says meeting with students to plan their futures reminds him that teaching and research create steppingstones for students en route to their goals.

Palley, who holds joint appointments in the Master of Public Administration Program and the Marine Policy Program, began teaching at the University in 1970 and was director of the Women’s Studies Program from 1999-2005. She says she tries to give her graduate students the kind of “wonderful mentoring” she herself received from professors.

In addition to the faculty awards, two teaching assistants also received awards for excellence.

Kainoa K. Harbottle, a teaching assistant in the English department, plans to pursue a career in academia, preferably teaching English at a small liberal arts college, perhaps in his home state of Hawaii.

Alondra R. Pacheco, a teaching assistant in Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, plans to pursue a doctorate in colonial literature, specializing in colonial Mexico.

—Kathy Canavan