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UGA professor James “Jim” Porter has never put
teaching second, despite a busy research schedule. The Institute
of Ecology professor has consistently gotten rave reviews from
students lucky enough to get into one of his courses. This
summer Porter was honored for his outstanding success with
the Eugene P. Odum Education Award presented by the Ecological
Society of America.
The award recognizes exceptional work of an individual
through teaching, outreach and mentoring activities that
help relate basic ecological principles to human affairs.
The award was named after the late UGA professor Eugene P.
Odum, who is also known as the “father of modern ecology.” Porter
is the first faculty member from UGA to receive this prize,
which was established in 2000.
Porter, who has a solid, well-regarded research record
in the area of coral reef ecosystems, was instrumental in
pushing for an environmental literacy requirement at UGA.
The requirement was later adopted by the Georgia state university
system, far ahead of the rest of the nation.
Porter’s classes are among the most popular on campus,
and the most effective, according to students – including
two Rhodes Scholars – as well as top-ranked scientists
and teachers. In a letter of nomination for the award written
the month prior to his death in 2002, Eugene Odum wrote, “I
know of no other ecologist who has accomplished this level
of success with undergraduates.”
“I am sure it is rare, indeed, for undergraduate
students to applaud a teacher at the conclusion of his lectures.
I saw this response from Jim’s students several times,” Dr.
Samuel Linhart of the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine
once commented after witnessing Porter in action. “On
two occasions students in his class were seen leaving with
tears in their eyes.”
Porter doesn’t restrict his teaching to campus. His
research on the cause of coral decline in the Florida Keys
attracted a lot of media attention when he and his students
discovered that a fecal coliform bacterium found in humans
was causing the problem. The findings, vividly described
by Porter in the press, on network television and on national
radio, caused municipalities throughout the Florida Keys
to upgrade their waste water treatment systems. He has testified
as an environmental expert before Congress five times.
“I was inspired by extraordinary teachers,” he
added. “If your aim is to change the world, my advice
is that dictators do not have a lasting influence, but teachers
do. To save the world, you must teach the world.”
Building the New Learning Environment
The new learning environment is an academic and intellectual
community on the campus of the University of Georgia humming
with the vibrancy of the true college experience—bright
and talented students working with brilliant faculty formally
in the classroom and informally over a cup of coffee or lounging
in the greenspace which stretches from one end of campus to
the other. It is a place which recognizes that new information
technologies are transforming traditional academic disciplines
and embraces those opportunities. |
Institute
of Ecology professor Jim Porter was recently awarded the Eugene P.
Odum Education Award presented by the Ecological Society of America.
