UGA faculty members will receive Richard B. Russell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the 2009 Faculty Recognition Banquet at the Athens Country Club on March 31. Russell Awards recognize outstanding teaching by faculty in their first decade of teaching. Winners receive $5,000. The Richard B. Russell Foundation of Atlanta supports the program.
Gayle Andrews
Associate Professor
of Elementary and Social Studies Education
By Cindy Rhoten
Gayle Andrews
Gayle Andrews has a passion for learning that her students find contagious. It captivates and motivates them in ways that words cannot easily explain. But many of those students can explain the personal interest she takes in their lives both in and out of the classroom.
Andrews, an associate professor in the College of Education’s department of elementary and social studies education, teaches courses in middle school education, focusing her research on the education of this age cohort.
“Whether through formal or informal ways, Dr. Andrews has assumed the role of mentor to numerous students in our program,” said Katherine Thompson, a public service associate for the middle school program. “At any given time, the program has 100 undergraduate students enrolled, and it is Dr. Andrews who views each of these students as ‘hers’—students for whom she cares deeply.”
Andrews’ colleagues are not the only ones to notice her caring way with students. Her students also praise her as a compassionate and dedicated professor.
“One thing that really stands out to me about Dr. Andrews is her love for her students,” said Mary Reagin, an undergraduate student in elementary education. “Not only does she have an incredible passion for learning that she passes on to her students, she also has an incredible love for people, especially her students.”
A UGA faculty member since 2001, Andrews uses two main methods of teaching to inspire and educate her students: democratic learning and service learning.
It is Andrews’ democratic- and service-learning teaching style that enables her to impact her students even after they have left the classroom and entered the field.
Melissa Brown, a Morgan County middle school teacher, participated in one of Andrews’ seminars and said Andrews’ passion for the class curriculum was evident. “She wowed us with unique teaching strategies that we were able to bring back and use in our classrooms,” Brown said.
Richard Menke
Associate Professor
of English
By Sara Freeland
Richard Menke
Richard Menke, an associate professor of English, wants to challenge his students intellectually—to make them really think.
“Richard Menke is an extremely popular, even beloved, teacher. . . He is a teacher whose classes spark new thinking,” wrote Tricia Lootens, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of English, in her recommendation letter.
Menke said his teaching style encourages reflection, exploration and critical thought. He aims to help students “encounter something outside themselves and their experience.
“I like to challenge students to think about how the claims of even the most abstract theorist might intersect with their own lives and experiences,” he said.
Menke earned a Ph.D. in English from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Rice University. After completing his dissertation, he came to UGA in 2000. He was promoted to associate professor in 2008.
In his more than eight years at UGA, Menke has taught almost 20 different English classes for both undergraduate and graduate students. His classes range from introductory English literature from 1700 to special topics classes on literature, technology and the history of media.
He consistently receives top scores from student class evaluations. On a scale of one to five (poor to excellent, respectively), he has received two perfect 5.0 averages in his classes and averaged a 4.8 ranking overall.
Katie Lambert, a 2006 UGA alumna, said that Menke’s love for teaching was obvious in the classes she took with him.
“He challenged us every single day and inspired me to work harder to be worthy of the challenge,” she said. “Because of him I am a more intellectually curious person.”
Colleague Simon Gatrell, an English professor, called Menke the finest scholar-teacher at present in the department.
“I envy the way he finds time after time an approach to a text that seizes the attention of even less-motivated students and draws out of them ideas and works that express the best they can do,” he said.
Lance Palmer
Assistant Professor
of Housing and Consumer Economics
By Denise Horton
Lance Palmer
Learning, Leading, Making A Difference.
The motto of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences’ family financial planning program can readily be applied to Lance Palmer’s teaching philosophy, according to the colleagues and current and former students who nominated him for the Richard B. Russell Teaching Award.
Palmer, an assistant professor of housing and consumer economics, arrived on campus in 2004, fresh from completion of his Ph.D. in consumer sciences at Utah State University. During his five years at UGA, he has made significant impacts both within his department and on the national level, particularly in teaching and service learning.
One of Palmer’s first projects was to serve as the leader of the effort to establish the family financial planning emphasis in FACS. That effort has since led to the establishment of the FFP major and, most recently, the development of a non-thesis master’s degree in FFP.
“It is extremely unusual for an assistant professor to be providing this type of leadership prior to tenure,” said Angela Lyons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “However, anyone who knows Dr. Palmer understands that this is not unusual at all, especially given his strong commitment to teaching and his desire to establish UGA’s financial planning program as one of the leading programs in the country.”
As a teacher, Palmer has concentrated on combining classroom and real-world experiences for his students, including helping them develop a series of “Lunch-and-Learn” seminars they have presented to the UGA community and establishing a partnership with several community organizations that have resulted in students working with the Internal Revenue Service-sponsored Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. He also emphasizes ethical decision-making.
Letters of support from students highlight both the difficulty of Palmer’s courses and his availability outside of class.
Columns
is produced by the UGA News Service, a unit of UGA Public Affairs. 286 Oconee St., Ste. 200N, Athens, GA 30602-1999 Juliett
Dinkins (jdinkins@uga.edu):
editor (706) 542-8017, Janet Beckley (jbeckley@uga.edu):
art director (706) 542-8170, Peter Frey (pfrey@uga.edu):
photo editor (706) 542-8086, Matthew
Weeks (mweeks@uga.edu): senior reporter (706) 542-8024, Sara
Freeland (freeland@uga.edu): reporter (706) 542-8077
Questions or comments should be directed to columns@uga.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 2008-2009 University of Georgia. All rights reserved
The University of Georgia • Athens, GA 30602 | UGA Directory Assistance
706/542-3000
UGA Home | UGA Today | Public
Affairs Directory
