Celebration Recognizes Creative Teachers, Grad Students and Center’s Founders

Provost Ralph Pearson will confer creative teaching and graduate student awards for excellence in teaching at the annual Celebration of Teaching Excellence at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 12, in the Power Center Ballroom. The campus community is welcome to attend.

Honors to be presented include the Creative Teaching Award, the Graduate Student Award and the new Spirit of Center for Teaching Excellence Recognition.

The Creative Teaching Award recognizes faculty who have implemented innovative ways of teaching and have assessed the impact on student learning. The innovation may have been used at other institutions or in other fields, but must be newly adapted in one’s field at Duquesne. The award recipients are:

  • Jeryl Benson, assistant professor of occupational therapy
  • Susan G. Goldberg, assistant professor of psychology
  • Jennifer Padden Elliott and Pamela Koerner, assistant professors of pharmacy practice
  • Amy Phelps, assistant professor of quantitative sciences
  • Heather Rusiewicz, assistant professor and director of the Speech Production Clinic.

This is the 20th anniversary of the Creative Teaching Award, and Dr. Dorothy Frayer, the former director of CTE who established the award in 1992, will be honored at the event.

The Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching Award promotes and rewards teaching effectiveness by current graduate students and provides award nominees with training on how to present evidence of teaching excellence. The award portfolios are evaluated for mastery of the basics of teaching, professional interactions with colleagues about college teaching and the ability to reflect on teaching and apply feedback. The award recipients are:

  • Sarah Carnahan Craig, Department of Biological Sciences
  • Maureen Gallagher, Department of English
  • Joseph Hamer, Department of Psychology
  • Ryanne Palermo, School of Pharmacy
  • Beth Surlow, Department of Biological Sciences.

The Spirit of Center for Teaching Excellence Recognition will honor the four individuals who were instrumental in founding the CTE in 1989 and who have provided ongoing support for the center’s work over the years. They are:

  • Judith Bowman, professor of music education
  • Susan Munson, associate professor and associate dean for teacher education
  • Connie Ramirez, professor of English and former dean of the McAnulty College (retired)
  • Paul Richer, professor of psychology (retired).

The CTE will also honor Certificate of University Teaching recipients, and will thank more than 75 colleagues who contributed to the teaching and career success of Duquesne faculty and graduate students in 2011-2012: workshop presenters, teaching award committee members and academic learning outcomes assessment committee members.