Teaching Awards

John Hutchinson—a devotee of the Socratic teaching method—estimates that he asks up to 30 questions during each class, and no one in the room—least of all Hutchinson—knows what direction the day’s lesson will take.

The method must be working because the chemistry professor has been recognized with the 2004 George R. Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching, Rice’s most prestigious teaching award.

“To teach Socratically, the first thing you have to do is to relinquish control,” Hutchinson says. “I typically start lectures with a blank blackboard or transparency, and I don’t write anything down until a student has spoken it.”

Hutchinson said one of the main goals of his class is to teach students to become independent learners. To that end, the questions he asks are not based on rote memorization. Instead, students are expected to read to class and be prepared to think on their feet.

The $6,500 Brown Prize is voted on by alumni who graduated two and five years ago. Hutchinson received a Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 1997, and he earned the Superior Teaching Award in 1994, 1996, and 1998.
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Six faculty members were honored this year with the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching. Voted on by alumni who graduated two and five years ago, the honor carries a $2,000 prize.

The prizes went to James Brown, professor of economics; Brian Gibson, assistant professor of kinesiology, who also earned the award in 2003; Mikki Hebl, the Radoslav Tsanoff Associate Professor of Psychology, who has received a teaching award in each of her last six years at Rice, including the Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching; Lynne Huffer, professor of French studies; Elizabeth Long, professor of sociology, who has won the award for her fifth time and also has earned the Excellence in Teaching honor; and Joel Wolfe, associate professor of history, another 2003 winner of the Superior Teaching Prize.
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For professors who have demonstrated outstanding service to graduate student education, the Rice Graduate Student Association anually awards its Faculty Teaching/Mentoring Award. The honor, which includes a $1,500 prize funded through the Office of the President, was awarded to Rebekah Drezek, the Stanley C. Moore Assistant Professor in Bioengineering and assistant professor in elecrical and computer engineering, and John Boles, the William P. Hobby Professor of History.
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This year, the Charles W. Duncan Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement was awarded to Lydia Kavraki, associate professor of computer science and bioengineering. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in both scholarship and teaching and includes a $5,000 prize.
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Mark Embree, assistant professor of computational and applied mathematics, who joined the Rice faculty just two years ago, received the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize for 2004. The prize, which includes a $2,000 award, is given annually by the Rice chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the national fraternity whose members were the top students in their graduating classes. The award is designed to recognize young faculty and is open only to assistant professors.
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John Anderson, the W. Maurice Ewing Chair in Oceanography, is the winner of the 2004 Presidential Award for Mentoring. Anderson has taken students on more than 20 scientific cruises in the Antarctic Ocean and countless more in the Gulf of Mexico. But the things that Anderson does in the lab, around the office, and at scientific meetings mean just as much or more to students than experiences at sea. The award, which includes a $2,000 prize, was established in 2003 by Rice president Malcolm Gillis to recognize outstanding achievement in mentoring students. Particular emphasis is given to candidates who have promoted diversity by mentoring women and underrepresented minorities.
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Mikki Hebl is one of 15 higher-education faculty members in Texas selected to be a 2004 Piper Professor. Nominated for the award by two students, Hebl was chosen in recognition of superior teaching at the college/university level. She will receive a $5,000 honorarium from the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation, which supports charitable, scientific, and educational endeavors in Texas.
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Associate Professor of Management and Statistics Barbara Ostdiek has been awarded the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management Teaching Excellence Award for the second time. Winners are voted on by alumni who graduated two and five years ago. Her goal is to allow students to gain an understanding of the fundamental concepts of macroeconomics and international finance by coupling difficult analytical techniques with the “big picture” context.
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Joan Strassmann, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and Benjamin Lee, professor of anthropology, have been selected as 2004 Guggenheim Fellows. Guggenheim Fellowships are among the most competitive awards in academia, partly because the funding carries very few restrictions and partly because of the wide range of disciplines covered.

Strassmann will study the impact of specific genes on interactions among social amoebae. Genes that may influence the way the amoebae behave toward family and nonfamily members have been identified, and Strassmann will systematically evaluate what role they play in the social dynamic of the colony.

The fellowship will enable Lee to write the second volume of a collaborative project with Edward LiPuma, chair of the anthropology department at the University of Miami. They have been studying the globalization of financial risk and derivatives, and now Lee plans to focus on the emergence of new derivatives in a more cultural way.

—Reported by B. J. Almond, Jade Boyd, Ellen Chang, and Debra Thomas