Six Rice faculty honored for their teaching

CONTACT: David Kaplan
PHONE:
(713) 348-6777
EMAIL: dkaplan@rice.edu

SIX RICE FACULTY HONORED FOR
THEIR TEACHING

Thirty-three years after winning the first George R. Brown Award for Superior
Teaching in 1967, Alan Grob has won another — his fifth in all.

Grob, a professor of
English, says it is very pleasing to receive the honor over a span of decades.
“At heart, I feel students remain the same,” he says, “and they’re receptive to
the same kinds of teaching approaches. I find that very satisfying.”

He and five other Rice
faculty members are winners of the $1,500 George R. Brown Awards for Superior
Teaching, based on voting by alumni who received bachelor’s degrees in ’95 and
’98.

The other winners are
Chandler Davidson, professor of sociology and political science; John Olson, the
Ralph and Dorothy Looney Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology; Miguel
Quiñones, associate professor of psychology and management; Richard Stoll,
professor of political science; and John Zammito, professor of history.

Grob says he has
“immensely enjoyed” teaching Rice students, who he describes as “exceptional.”
Part of his success in teaching, he believes, is his strong commitment to the
value of literature. “Because the literature is so good, half the battle is won
as a teacher,” he says. Grob also has won a George R. Brown Prize for Excellence
in Teaching.

For Davidson, “teaching
is something of a contradiction. It’s not fun at all,” he says. “It’s stressful,
particularly the preparation. I often feel like I’m not up to the task.” But
when a course works, Davidson says, it is “deeply satisfying.”

“For me, face-to-face interaction with
students is essential,” he says. “I can’t imagine teaching in a virtual
classroom. I want to engage real people, not computer screens.”

Davidson says that after
34 years, he is still trying to teach a course “whose parts fit together
perfectly. So far, no luck.” Davidson has won three Superior Teaching awards and
one Excellence in Teaching award.

One of Olson’s more
“interesting” teaching evaluations calls his lectures 3D: not three-dimensional,
but “dry, detailed and demanding.” But the students must like it. This is
Olson’s second Superior Teaching award, and he gets friendly e-mails from former
students telling him that he made medical school easier.

When Olson prepares his
lectures, he tries to determine what the problems are that he wants students to
be able to solve, based on what they’ll need for careers in academic research,
biotechnology and medicine.

The fundamental material
may not always be exciting, he says, but he cares more about preparing them
properly for graduate school and medical school.

“The satisfaction comes
when people can solve real problems in life,” Olson says.

Quiñones feels teaching
is a two-way street. “I have a lot to learn from students, and I take an
interest in them,” he says. Quiñones likes to get students involved in
discussions and lets them know he is approachable. For him, it is important to
get to know his students, even in his larger classes, such as statistics, a
required class for psychology majors. He arrives early to talk with them.

“In some ways this award
is a validation of my style and commitment to learning and teaching,” Quiñones
says of his first teaching award. “It is a big honor from the students, to
remember me even after graduation. I just really like the students, and I guess
it shows.”

When Stoll was a
graduate student at the University of Michigan, he recalls one of his professors
giving a definition of good teaching: It makes simple things complicated and
complicated things simple. Stoll explains: On the one hand, a good teacher can
take a complex issue and show students how to identify its basic components and,
on the other hand, when a topic seems straightforward, he or she can show its
additional complexities.

Stoll, who has won five
Superior Teaching Awards and one Excellence in Teaching Award, says the ultimate
goal of a teacher is to enable students to think on their own, in the classroom
and after they graduate.

Zammito says two things
motivate him in a classroom. The first, he says, is “the material itself, which
I passionately love.” He also says there is “something utterly energizing about
going into a classroom of students when I am able to put things together and see
that links and connections are being formed.”

Zammito, who also has
received the George R. Brown Teaching Prize for Excellence and the Salgo Award
in the past, revisits his courses every year, adding new research and
incorporating student input about what does and doesn’t work.

“This is a university
that really cares about teaching; I’m very proud of that and proud to be here,”
Zammito says.

About admin