Aquatics’ Harwood earns Bearden award

	LIZ HARWOOD

Liz Harwood, assistant director of the Rice Recreation Aquatics Program and Lifetime Physical Activity Program (LPAP) specialist, recently won the 2008-09 Frank W. Bearden Award for Teaching Excellence.

The award is voted on by students and is based on their belief that a particular LPAP specialist has gone beyond the ordinary demands of teaching to inspire, support and encourage students to become physically active.

Harwood has been an integral part of LPAP since coming to Rice in 2005 and is a dedicated teacher and advocate for physical activity. In a nomination letter, one of her students wrote, “I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would be capable of doing a triathlon, but thanks to Liz’s help with preparation and her faith in my abilities, I finished my first one in Galveston. … Liz has really inspired and engendered in me a lifelong love of swimming and triathlons, and I am so thankful for her dedication.”

The Bearden award is named in honor of the late Frank Bearden, a professor of kinesiology who taught at Rice almost 50 years.