Eleven faculty and staff from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences were recently honored for excellence in teaching and advising at the University of Illinois. They comprised half of the 21 faculty and staff recognized across the Urbana-Champaign campus.
LAS winners were honored in the following categories:
Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Faculty winners were Donald Crummey, history; Cara Finnegan, speech communication; and Julia Saville, English.
Instructional staff winners included Lori Garner in English. Graduate teaching assistants who won this award were Melissa Girard, English; Thomas Mackaman, history; and Jon Sherman, Germanic languages and literatures.
The undergraduate and graduate teaching awards recognize those who display consistently excellent performance in the classroom, take innovative approaches to teaching, positively affect the lives of their students, and make other contributions to improved instruction, such as influencing curriculum.
Faculty members receive $5,000 plus a $3,000 raise; instructional staff members receive $4,000 plus a $1,500 raise; and graduate teaching assistants receive $3,500.
Campus Award for Excellence in Guiding Undergraduate Research. Eric Oldfield, professor of chemistry, received a $2,000 award to foster and reward excellence in involving undergraduate students in scholarly research.
Campus Award for Excellence in Mentoring Graduate Students. From LAS, the winner was Ronald Toby, professor of East Asian languages and cultures.
Campus Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Instruction Using EducationalTechnologies. Chilin Shih, professor of East Asian languages and cultures, received this $2,000 award.
