Margaret-Ann Armour’s contributions to teaching begin with the traditional role of running the laboratory program in organic chemistry and extend to a variety of activities that have had an impact across Canada. Perhaps the most notable and significant contribution is her pioneering work to interest young people in science. She was a founding member of WISEST (Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science and Technology), where she devised and implemented innovative ways of encouraging young women to enter careers in science, engineering and technology. This program was recognized in 1994 by the Michael Smith Award for Science Promotion, and by the Royal Society of Canada in the award of the McNeil Medal. In 1995, she received the University of Alberta’s Academic Women’s Award, presented annually to a woman who has made an extraordinary contribution to the University.

Margaret-Ann Armour has had a major impact on the teaching of chemistry, particularly in the areas of improving laboratory instruction, laboratory safety, and the safe disposal of laboratory chemicals. She creates and presents annual laboratory safety seminars for graduate students in the Departments of Chemistry and Biological Sciences, and for students in the science education program of the Faculty of Education. She serves on the University of Alberta’s Occupuational Health and Safety Policies and Environmental Issues Committee and has made literally hundreds of presentations (nationally and internationally) promoting chemical education, chemical safety and environmental issues. Her work influences the attitudes of science teachers at all levels, both in Alberta and throughout Canada. She is an outstanding teacher, who is well-liked by students, teaching assistants, and colleagues.

In 1996 WISEST won the Excellence in Science and Technology Public Awareness Prize from ASTech, the Alberta Science and Technology Awards Foundation. In 1998, Margaret-Ann was named a CITV Woman of Vision and in 1999 received the University of Alberta Board of Governor’s Award of Distinction, both of these for her work in fostering the interest of young women in the sciences and engineering.

Donald Cartwright’s record of teaching excellence spans more than two decades. Students, peers, and colleagues identify him as a superb educator. Peers have recognized his achievements as an outstanding instructor and have honoured him with an OCUFA Award for Excellence in University Teaching in 1980, the Distinguished Teaching Achievement Award of the National Council for Geographic Education (USA) in 1987, and the University of Western Ontario’s Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1996. He devises innovative curriculum, delivers masterful lectures, and achieves very high ratings in the Faculty’s annual evaluation of teaching performance. In the words of one student: “I look to him to see what I can be as a teacher, and work toward bringing the life and excitement into my own classes as he did for me”. Donald Cartwright is not only an outstanding performer in the classroom but is involved in educational planning and policy development, in course and program design within the University, as well as on behalf of the National Council for Geographic Education. He collaborated with the Faculty of Education to develop a Master of Arts in Teaching degree in Geography. In his own department, he spent several years assisting all new graduate student teaching assistants to enhance their teaching, through classroom visits and annual seminars. He works closely with students in a counselling role and served for many years as the Chair of the Department of Geography’s Undergraduate Affairs Committee, as well as being involved with the University’s First Year Counselling and High School Liaison programs.

David Cass has been a professor at the University of Alberta since 1969, and has taken a strong interest in teaching throughout his career. He has managed to maintain a keen interest in teaching while doing basic research on plant embryo development. That research has recently resulted in a patented technique of which Dr. Cass is a co-inventor. The course evaluations for David Cass have always been in the excellent range and testify to his effective and “student friendly” teaching style. His courses are known for their rigor, and he continues to assess and refine their content and delivery and how best to assist his students with their learning. For example, he now uses a series of PowerPoint slides to introduce concepts in all of his courses. These serve as “the menu” to the detailed lecture which Dr. Cass tends to present as a blackboard talk; the menu is given to each student. In recognition of his teaching ability, David Cass has been recognized by his own university in 1988 when he received the Faculty of Science Award for Excellence in Teaching and in 1990 when he received the A.C. Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. The Rutherford Award is the highest teaching award given by the University of Alberta.

David Cass shares his interest in teaching with others by serving on university committees concerned with teaching, by serving as a teaching mentor to graduate students and colleagues, by supporting the work of University Teaching Services by giving talks on teaching techniques, and by serving as a peer consultant for other professors or graduate student teachers who request help with their teaching. He has served two terms as a member of the University Teaching Award Committee and last year was its chair. David Cass’s contributions to science education extend beyond the classroom and he has made many science presentations on television programs, to the general public, to high school students and teachers, elementary schools, and to kindergarten classes. A favorite presentation is to new students at the University of Alberta in which he attempts to give new students insight in what to expect in their classes and how best to manage their new learning experiences at a large university. Last October, David gave talks at public schools during “literacy week”; these talks are designed to emphasize the importance of literacy in science but also in everyday life. In recognition of David’s numerous contributions outside the university, in 1997 he was given the University of Alberta Board of Governors Award of Distinction for helping to strengthen the ties between the University and the community.

David Cook has been associated with the Department of Pharmacology, within the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Alberta, for nearly 30 years, serving as its chair from 1981 to 1991. His real enthusiasm is for teaching, something for which he has a natural gift. He continually challenges his students to question, dissect and cross-reference the information that is being presented to them. It is a rare talent which he has refined and uses extremely effectively. These talents resulted in his nomination (by medical students) as Teacher of the Year or Outstanding Teacher in 15 of the last 20 years. His student ratings are impressive as are the feedback and comments from his many community and university presentations.

As Director of Studies in Medical Education, David Cook has been an innovator in the development of new courses and in the application of problem-based learning to medical education. He regularly leads workshops on making presentations, on the use and abuse of overheads, and on testing. He has a number of publications in journals and newsletters on these topics as well as papers and presentations on problem-based learning and on the evaluation of teaching. In 1994, a Curriculum Innovation Committee was established to review the potential for change in methods of instruction and the appropriate measures to assess the significance of these changes. David Cook chairs this committee. He regularly is invited to serve on similar committees and task forces where he works to support teaching and learning through the development of policy and the creation of a collegial atmosphere for implementing policy.

Clarissa Green has received virtually every teaching award a nursing professor can receive at the University of British Columbia, and the evaluations of her teaching are exemplary year after year. Her consistent goal is to optimize the learning opportunities for her students whether in the traditional classroom or in a clinical setting. In doing so, she has maintained high standards while fostering independence and the capacity for life-long learning. She has established herself as a highly effective teacher in a variety of courses and teaching environments in the undergraduate nursing curriculum. She has been a course leader, a primary lecturer, a developer of course-related materials and a coordinator of all faculty associated with these courses. She is currently Third Year Coordinator of the Undergraduate Nursing Program and last year organized and chaired a very successful all-day forum on teaching and learning issues for teachers in that group.

Clarissa Green has achieved a remarkable reputation across the University campus for her expertise in teaching and her willingness to assist others to improve their own teaching. Since 1989, she has been an Advisory Board member of TAG (Teaching and Academic Growth ), UBC’s Faculty Development Centre. In addition to her position as board member, she assisted in the development of the Peer Consultation Program and is currently a peer consultant. Several times annually, she has been invited to offer guest lectures within other faculties and departments at UBC, as well as developing and facilitating annual workshops for UBC Faculty. She is the author of several articles on creative teaching and has developed and produced both audio and videotape materials for teaching purposes.

Arthur Haberman has a distinguished record for outstanding teaching. He is a previous OCUFA Award winner and a winner of the York University Teaching Award in 1995. In all his courses, there is an emphasis on critical thinking and active student participation. His consistent high rating among his students is a consequence of his meticulous care in the preparation and delivery of lectures and his astute use of seminar groups to achieve the best possible results from group learning. He is known for his attention to the needs of individual students through his thoroughness in grading written assignments and the sensitivity of his personal and academic counselling

The evidence for Arthur Haberman’s leadership is equally compelling. Within York University, his colleagues praise his mentorship and his contagious passion for learning. His tact, humour and respect for his colleagues’ points-of-view – in addition to the wide range of scholarship and pedagogical standards he brings to his work – help to realize the potential of team-teaching. In his capacity as Master of Founders College, he was instrumental in the design and delivery of York’s prize-winning college-based advising system. He also played a critical role in the development of York’s Faculty of Education and in the development of a new program integrating content and pedagogy. Outside the University, his participation as a faculty member in the National Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Sciences has made him an internationally recognized teacher of teachers. His professional work includes giving papers at various conferences and innumerable meetings with teachers and students in schools. His major publications have contributed to the development of pedagogy in the teaching of History and the Humanities.

Bluma Litner’s career at Concordia University reflects her serious commitment to quality teaching and to its improvement, both within the University and beyond. She is an innovator and a leader, who has been deeply concerned about issues of inclusion in higher education long before the term became popular. The quality of her teaching was acknowledged when the Concordia Council on Student Life awarded her their Excellence in Teaching Award in 1994, the first year the award was given. She has established a reputation in her department and amongst students and colleagues as an outstanding teacher who not only develops and presents course material in a manner that is conducive to learning but also makes herself available to students for consultation, support and encouragement, far above and beyond what is necessary.

From the very first year that Bluma Litner arrived at Concordia she has been actively involved in supporting the development and improvement of teaching and learning. She served on the advisory board for both the Lacolle Centre for Educational Innovation and the Learning Development Office. As a colleague, she is a model of professionalism. She has organized, designed and facilitated sessions for faculty and regularly leads sessions for senior administrators, chairs, and teaching assistants on a variety of topics. Her concern for quality teaching goes beyond Concordia and is reflected in her research and writing, as well as in her consulting and service work. Many of her projects have involved educational institutions struggling to create productive environments to support teaching and learning.

Inderjit Nirdosh has been widely known for exceptional teaching throughout his career at Lakehead University. His work with students is the centerpiece of his achievement as a university educator and his classroom approach can be characterized as one of caring – “But for your special caring, constant encouragement, and a lot of patience, I might have never been where I am today”. When he realized how important presentation skills were to graduates, he introduced coached practice of these skills in many of his courses. The difference between students who have had the benefit of his tutelage, and those who have not, is clearly evident whether during a thesis exam or when his students present at national conferences. With student ratings consistently above 9 on a 10 point scale, it is no wonder he received an OCUFA Teaching Award in 1995 and, in the same year, Lakehead University’s Distinguished Instructor Award.

Inderjit Nirdosh’s approach to refining teaching is scholarly. When students experienced difficulties, he conducted a survey to determine the nature of the difficulties, devised a series of review tutorials and won the support of the department to make these a regular part of the curriculum. In 1994, he helped to organize a university-wide workshop on problem-based learning and then went on to apply this particular approach to teaching in one of his own courses. He described this experience through articles in the local instructional development newsletter and subsequently published the results of his efforts in a Chemical Engineering journal. Recently, he joined a select group of colleagues from several academic disciplines to plan the course of the University’s instructional development program.

Dr. Monika Schloder, a member of the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada has more than 42 years of teaching in her specialty areas of curriculum design, teaching/coaching foundation, sport pedagogy, sociology of sport, and philosophy of sport. She is internationally recognized for her contribution to improve teaching/coaching methodology. A winner of numerous international awards she is also a 1996 3M Teaching Fellowship recipient for teaching excellence at Canadian Universities.

She has spent the same amount of years in coaching from beginning to elite level swimming, artistic gymnastics, and athletics. As a Master course conductor since 1976 for the Canadian National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) in coaching theory as well as technical swimming and artistic gymnastics she has educated close to 20,000 coaches and serves currently as a NCCP mentor and basic skills assessor. She is also involved in the new curriculum design and writing of new coaching book in the above sports. The bilingual (English-Spanish) “Pursuit to Excellence Swim Series” (video and book) “Fly away: The butterfly stroke in swimming. Progressive-sequential-creative-experiential” won the international Panasonic and AMTEC Film Festival price in 1996.

She has served as the Master Coach in Residence since 1991 for the Los Angeles based Amateur Athletic Foundation, legacy of the 1984 Games developing programs for Inner city youth (minorities and youth gangs) which denotes 217 graduates to date serving Inner city sports groups and teams; she created, developed and wrote the AAF Coach Leadership Program (CLP) in swimming (1992) and soccer (1993), inclusive the curriculum and the coaching manuals for these sports. She co-authored the 1998 AAF manual “Coaching young athletes: A foundation for success” and recently completed the new AAF swimming book “Youth Coach – Swimming: Skills and Thrills”(2003).

Over the last 10 years, Wes Schreiber has had an effect on nearly every aspect of medical education at the University of British Columbia. He has participated in undergraduate medical education, undergraduate technology education, summer student research supervision, residency training and postgraduate continuing education. More recently, he has become a key figure in the design and implementation of a new curriculum for the UBC School of Medicine. He served on the Committee that developed the plan and is now chair of the Committee charged with developing the first 13 weeks of the new program. In addition to curriculum development, he has served on several other committees that oversee resident training, both at UBC and nationally.

In the classroom, Wes Schreiber is full of enthusiasm and eagerness to have his students participate and learn. He tries to create an informal and friendly atmosphere with the expecta tion that each student will respond with a good effort. His teaching expertise and interest is widely acknowledged and appreciated by medical students, residents, and faculty colleagues. His students ratings are exceptional and are reflected in his repeated recognition by the second and third year undergraduate medical students who have honored him in 1989, 1992 and 1993 with their Teaching Excellence Award. More recently, the University of British Columbia recognized his accomplishments through the University Killiam Award for Excellence in Teaching.