Faculty Awards and Honors

“Sometimes professors have the greatest impact on students they are not even aware that they are impacting, and that’s exciting,” says Mikki Hebl, winner of this year’s George R. Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Hebl, the Radoslav Tsanoff Assistant Professor of Psychology and Management, says she enjoys every course she teaches, but she’s partial to the smaller classes, where it’s easier to get to know each student, which is one of her priorities. The $6,500 Brown Prize is Rice’s most prestigious teaching award, whose recipient is voted on by alumni who graduated two and five years ago. Last year, Hebl won a George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching, and this year’s honor marks her fifth teaching award in five years.

Each year, six faculty members are recognized with the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching by alumni who graduated two and five years earlier. This year, the $2,000 prizes were awarded to Richard Baraniuk, a professor in electrical and computer engineering, who previously won the Brown Award for Superior Teaching in 2001 and the Charles Duncan Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement in 2000; Michael Emerson, an associate professor of sociology; Brian Gibson, an assistant professor of kinesiology and director of sports medicine; Ira Gruber, the Harris Masterson Jr. Professor of History, who received the Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2001 and the Brown Award for Superior Teaching in 1974; Miguel Quiñones, an associate professor of psychology and management, who has won the Brown Award for Superior Teaching three times; and Joel Wolfe, an associate professor of history.

The Rice Graduate Student Association presents its annual Faculty Teaching/Mentoring Award to professors who have demonstrated outstanding service to graduate student education. The award, which is funded through the Office of the President and includes a $1,500 prize, went this year to Kyriacos Athanasiou, professor of bioengineering, and Mikki Hebl, the Radoslav Tsanoff Assistant Professor of Psychology and Management.

Even after teaching English for 33 years at Rice, Dennis Huston said each class is still an eye-opener, and his students agree, naming him winner of the 2003 Nicholas Salgo Distinguished Teaching Award. Created in 1966, it is the oldest teaching award at Rice University and is funded by the Noren-Salgo Foundation and Rice. The recipient is chosen by the current junior and senior classes, and the award comes with a $1,500 prize. Huston received the award twice before—in 1975 and 1984. He also has received many other teaching awards, including the Piper Professor Award for Outstanding Achievement in Teaching in 2002, the George R. Brown Certificate of Highest Merit in 1989, the George R. Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 1978 and 1986, the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching in 1977, 1979, 1981, and 1988, and the Brown College Teaching Award for excellence in teaching in the humanities in 1975. He was selected as Professor of the Year in the United States and Canada by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation in 1989.

The Charles W. Duncan Award, which carries a $5,000 prize, recognizes faculty members for outstanding achievement in both scholarship and teaching. This year, the award was presented to Carl Caldwell, an associate professor of history and German and Slavic studies, and Jennifer West, an associate professor of bioengineering and chemical engineering. Caldwell received the Graduate Student Association’s Faculty Teaching/Mentoring Award in 2001, and West was honored with the Julia Mile Chance Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2002.

Matthias Henze, the Watt J. and Lilly G. Jackson Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies, and Allison Sneider, an assistant professor of history, may teach different disciplines, but both share common goals as professors: They want their students to think critically while in their classes. Their goals and teaching methods have earned them the 2003 Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize. Given by the Rice chapter of a national fraternity whose members were the top students in their graduating classes, the award is designed to recognize nontenured assistant professors for outstanding teaching performance and commitment to student education.

Described as one of the most creative and involved teachers of Spanish at Rice, Jane Verm, senior lecturer on Spanish, Portuguese, and classics, has been recognized for her work with the 2003 Sarofim Teaching Award for Excellence. The award, created with support from Rice endowment manager Fayez Sarofim, is given to a lecturer in the School of Humanities who has shown exceptional professionalism and dedication to students.

Having made a mark on both his profession and his students, Jeff Fleming, associate professor of management at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, has been rewarded with his second Jones School Award for Excellence in Teaching. Students who graduated two and five years ago select the award winner. Fleming also receives, year after year, top marks—four out of four stars—in the annual Business Week survey of alumni from the top M.B.A. programs.

Yildiz Bayazitoglu, the Harry S. Cameron Professor in Mechanical Engineering, is this year’s recipient of the Julia Mile Chance Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Bayazitoglu has accomplished much in her academic career—in addition to making extensive contributions in her field, she has been a mentor and role model for countless students at Rice. The Chance Prize is awarded annually to an associate or full professor who provides students with an intellectual challenge and inspiration in his or her field of study, shows extraordinary dedication to students’ professional development and advancement, and enhances gender-sensitive leadership on campus. The nominations are based on recommendations from undergraduate and graduate students and alumni and teaching evaluations. Bayazitoglu is a frequent recipient of Rice academic awards, including the Graduate Student Association Faculty Teaching Award and the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching.

Yin Zhang, an associate professor of computational and applied mathematics, is the first winner of the Presidential Award for Mentoring, a new faculty award established by Rice president Malcolm Gillis to recognize outstanding achievement in mentoring students. The award includes a $2,000 prize. The mentoring award will be given annually to a faculty member who has demonstrated a commitment to mentoring students, either graduate or undergraduate. In selecting winners, particular emphasis will be given to candidates who have promoted diversity by mentoring women and underrepresented minorities.

—Reported by B. J. Almond, Jade Boyd, Ellen Chang, Jennifer Evans, Greg Okuhara, and Debra Thomas