Since her appointment to the Faculty of Nursing in 1981, Jeanette Boman is remarkably committed to excellence in teaching and the improvement of university teaching within her own Faculty and the University of Alberta as a whole. She became involved in teaching and learning activities early in her career by serving on the General Faculties Council, the university’s highest academic governing body. In position as the first Associate Dean of Teaching in her Faculty, she established a number of programs that promoted the value and profile of teaching in the Faculty of Nursing. She developed a series of workshops for faculty on the tutor’s role, provided individual consultation, and set up a series of “brown-bag lunches” entitled “Teaching Matters” where faculty could share successful strategies and solutions to problems.

Jeanette was involved in other relationship positions within the Faculty and the University. In 1982, she became the first off-campus Post RN B.Sc.N. Program Coordinator to make nursing studies possible for students unable to come to the campus. She was later a member and Chair of the Committee for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning. During this time she played a key role in exploring and bringing about the now mandatory Instructor Designed Questionnaire approach to the evaluation of teaching performance. She continues to be actively involved with University Teaching Services through the Peer Consultation Program.

Jeanette is an outstanding teacher, as evaluated by students, colleagues and members of the nursing profession. Evaluations of her teaching are consistently at the highest level. Her students describe her as sensitive, exceptionally supportive, most respectful of their ideas and opinions, able to stimulate creativity and individuality, and very skillful in building upon their background and expertise. She works hard to make every student feel a valuable part of the teaching-learning group, getting to know them personally, and getting them actively involved in the learning process. She has received four teaching awards from her own Faculty and, in 1986, was honoured with the Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Linda Briskin has been recognized by faculty, students and tutorial assistants as someone who has a passion for teaching. Her early days as a high school teacher, and her subsequent career as a college instructor, have given her an in-depth understanding of pedagogy that she continues to develop in the university setting. One of the main themes of this pedagogical work is “power in the classroom”. This work on the dynamics of how power operates and how it can be negotiated in the classroom, particularly with reference to race, gender, and sexual orientation, has earned Linda both a national and international reputation. Her 1990 publication, Feminist Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning Liberation, is widely circulated and reprinted in a variety of publications.

Students speak of the lasting impact of her teaching and the degree to which she can help them make personal sense of contemporary issues. “There are few professors that can challenge students to think critically and encourage students to reach their full potential”, says one of Linda’s students. The dedication and commitment Linda brings to her teaching are reflected in student evaluations. She earns ratings that are consistently above 4 on a 5-point scale, and that are well above the averages for first year courses.

The Faculty of Arts recently introduced the Foundations Program where first and second year students in the Divisions of Social Science and Humanities take courses which are explicitly designed to develop their critical skills in reading, writing and analytical methods. Linda’s teaching colleagues in her Foundations course – Women and Society – define her as a fabulous teacher who organizes material beautifully and gives first year students a sense of academic security that makes it possible for them to dramatically improve their performance. Linda has taken a leadership role in developing the Foundations Program by identifying key issues and strategies. She was recently named a 1998 recipient of the Faculty of Arts Dean’s Award for Teaching at York University.

During the last decade, Patricia has earned the reputation as a superior teacher and leader in the incorporation of interactive software in pedagogy. She teaches across the entire range of the Sociology curriculum, and all her courses are enriched with internet and e-mail technologies including computer lab periods, online newsgroup discussions of course topics and themes, and carefully evaluated student web page authorship. An important part of Pat’s teaching activity involves the Capstone Seminar in Arts and Science which she implemented. This is a multi-disciplinary course which focuses on critical thinking and communication skills among senior undergraduate students. Pat guided the first group of instructors through a preliminary year of planning and the first offering of the course. She has been an instructor in the course for the past four years.

Because of her many contributions to teaching excellence and innovation, Pat won the competition for the Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University in 1991. In 1994, her teaching was further honoured by the invitation to give the prestigious Convocation Address. Pat was Chair of the Department of Sociology from 1990 to 1998, and was the Coordinator of Women’s Studies from 1996 to 1998. She was also the President of the University of Lethbridge Faculty Association and also the Coordinator of Liberal Education.

During the past twenty years, Pat has taught courses and/or conducted research at seven universities in four countries. She is a popular and highly sought after workshop provider, and has given over a dozen pedagogical presentations. Her main scholarly interests are rooted in Feminist Sociology, a domain in which she has published over twenty articles, and has delivered almost forty conference presentations and invited lectures.

Erhan Erkut’s performance as a lecturer is outstanding, but his contributions to students extend outside the classroom. Whether it is replying to an e-mail query at 3:00 a.m., or spending an hour helping students in the computer lab, Erhan is absolutely and intensely committed to his students. He is quick to respond to student comments and takes their feedback very seriously. “He loves to teach and the energy and enthusiasm that he exudes when he is in front of the classroom is unbelievable.”

Working as a team leader with other colleagues, Erhan revamped the Faculty of Business’ introductory operations management course, and transformed it into the “most challenging and most rewarding” of the introductory courses. It now features the extensive use of technology in the presentation of course material, and carefully-paced modules of material interspersed with music, video, simulations and skits. Despite being taught in a class of 350 students, this course has received the highest student ratings among the Faculty’s introductory classes. Erhan’s innovative and enthusiastic delivery of the material has made him the recipient of five teaching awards, one of which is the University of Alberta’s premier teaching award, The Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Erhan is not only interested in teaching students, but also in providing training opportunities for future colleagues. Recently, Erhan spearheaded the Faculty’s involvement in the University of Alberta’s University Teaching Program, which provides opportunities for Ph.D. students to develop an ethical, philosophical, and practical basis for careers in post-secondary teaching.

Erhan is well known across North America and is in constant demand to make presentations at conferences and workshops. He has been invited to a number of business schools to discuss his teaching strategies, and his use of technology in the classroom. During the last two years, he has served as the Education Committee Chair for both the Canadian Operational Research Society and The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. Recently, he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of INFORMS Transactions on Education, a new educational journal in his discipline.

Lee Gass joined the Zoology Department at the University of British Columbia in 1974, after ten years of teaching in high schools and colleges. From the beginning, he taught by inquiry and mentored his colleagues on increasing participation by students. He was instrumental in developing the Science One Program, an honours level, interdisciplinary first year program at UBC. He taught in the Program for three years, setting the standard for excellence in team-teaching an integrated curriculum in all of Science. This approach has spread to several other new programs in the Faculty of Science. Lee collaboratively designed and delivered the first integration course, “the sizes of things” in a new Integrated Sciences degree program, launched in 1998. The program allows students to design their own degree programs by selecting existing disciplinary courses and taking three upper level courses that explicitly cut across disciplines. In these courses, students learn how to integrate information through self-directed learning with problem-based classroom activities, group projects and presentations. Also collaboratively, Lee created Science First!, an independent lecture series for undergraduates in which scientists tell the story of their life work without “teaching” the students anything. Since Lee gave the first Science First! lectures in 1996 and1997, this series has attracted large and diverse audiences of students, graduate students, and faculty.

In the last three years, Lee has visited several universities in the United States and Singapore to talk about educational innovations at UBC, to teach in programs there, and to help teachers and administrators design and implement integrated programs that suit each university’s own needs. Lee has been actively involved in peer consultation and program development across the Biology program at UBC.

Lee is a gifted teacher with a brilliant and incisive approach that invites students to engage in the joy of learning. His unique teaching style combines narrative and story telling with lecturing and Socratic questioning; it builds students’ trust and self-confidence and leads them into deep analysis of the course material and the learning process. In April of this year, he was awarded the University’s Killam Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

When Herbert arrived at the University of Toronto in 1984, he had already reestablished General Internal Medicine as a preferred postgraduate Training Program at McGill and had attracted national attention for his work. At the University of Toronto, he took on key leadership positions in the Department of Medicine and at the University Health Networks (Toronto Western, Toronto General and Princess Margaret Hospitals). From these vantage points, he led the development of new curricula, and new structures for student involvement in curriculum design. He was instrumental in leading the city-wide integration of the postgraduate education program in medicine, and recruited a talented group of young teachers in the process. The clinical teaching units, the residency training committee, and teaching courses for postgraduate student-teachers, have all flourished under his leadership.

Herbert led in the creation of a novel daily Morning Report as a teaching tool, where he promotes discussions using a problem-based approach and encourages participants to look beyond the immediate concerns to examine the factors that influence health, illness and outcomes. His group pioneered the development of an “Evidence Based Core Curriculum” in internal medicine, a set of core articles from the medical literature that resident physicians use to guide their decisions on common medical conditions. He initiated a formal evaluation process for Medical Grand Rounds with specifically designed questionnaires that will further improve on what have become a highly regarded lecture series amongst the residents and he has completed the difficult task of developing and testing a rating scale for assessing the equality of education on Medical Teaching Units.

Herbert has been personally evaluated by hundreds of undergraduate and postgraduate students over the course of 20 years and is consistently rated at the very top. Through their comments and evaluations, it is clear that they each hold him in the highest regard, not only for the information presented, but for his role model as a caring teacher and clinician. Teaching awards from the Hospital, the Faculty, the University and the provincial level have recognized his excellence as a teacher. He has won all major teaching awards in his environment.

The highest recognition of Andy’s leadership in education has been during the past year with his selection as a Distinguished Educator by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, receiving the Michael Smith Award for Science Promotion from Industry Canada, and being named the Canadian University Professor of the Year by the Canadian Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. In 1996, he was the recipient of the David Hilbert International Award for the promotion of mathematics worldwide which was presented to him at the International Congress of Mathematics Education by the World Federation of National Mathematics Competitions. At the University of Alberta, he is a recipient of the Faculty of Science Award for Excellent Teaching, the Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the Engineering Undergraduate Teaching Award which is open only to professors outside the Faculty of Engineering who teach their students in service courses. Andy earned his doctorate in mathematics and diploma in elementary education simultaneously, and for many years he has acted as a liaison between the Department of Mathematical Sciences and the Faculty of Education. He was also a Faculty Advisor and is currently designing a Master’s degree in the teaching of mathematics.

Outside the University of Alberta, Andy organized the S.M.A.R.T. Club for elementary junior high school students which has resulted in publications in scientific and educational journals. He regularly speaks at elementary, junior and senior high schools, as well as the Greater Edmonton Teachers’ Convention and other conferences concerned with mathematics education. He is a mathematics resource person for the Edmonton Association for Bright Children and has served as a mathematics instructor for community leagues. Andy’s role in mathematics and education extends nationally and internationally where he is a contributor to and of several editorial boards.

During the past 19 years, Andy has taught a wide variety of courses for students in the Faculties of Business, Education, Engineering and Science. His teaching has consistently been exemplary and many students enroll in his classes on the basis of his reputation. His popularity with students is due to the tremendous amount of work he puts into teaching, the sense of fun he brings to mathematics, his ability to explain difficult concepts clearly, and the genuine concern he has for his students. He is a devoted supporter of mathematical competitions and has used them for many years as a way to motivate and promote interest in mathematics at the local, provincial, national, and international levels.

Mick Price was appointed an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta in 1976, and by 1979, he had won the first of his three prestigious Agriculture Teaching Excellence Awards. In 1983 he was appointed Associate Dean (Agriculture). During this period, he conducted a complete review of the undergraduate program, and Chaired a Committee to create a new degree program. Following his tenure as Associate Dean, Mick became Chair of Animal Science, one of the largest departments in the institution. Since then, he continues to devote an enormous amount of time and energy to committee work to further teaching at the University of Alberta. This is typical of his commitment to teaching and his desire to promote “an administrative and collegial environment that cherishes effective teaching”, to foster such an environment as an effective way to improve teaching, and “to raise the level of respect for teaching among those around him”.

Mick’s commitment to excellence teaching goes well beyond his own classroom by assisting and mentoring other faculty members. He has been an active participant in a variety of programs offered by University Teaching Services, including the Peer Consultation Program. As a member of the University’s major committee on teaching and learning, he took primary responsibility for the review and revision of the student evaluation instrument used on a University-wide basis. He won the Brian Hocking Scholarship and used the prize to bring a group of colleagues to a Canadian teaching conference where they worked as a team to research the best way to evaluate and reward teaching.

He has been described as a brilliant instructor, an inspirational leader and zealous scholar. His courses include such teaching and learning innovations as: one-on-one oral examinations, student directed marking contracts, teleconference lectures, and international group e-mail projects. He created an intensive off-campus laboratory class in meat science and goes out of his way to help students develop oral communication skills. His student evaluations are exceptional, and this year, his dedication and hard work culminated in his recognition as a Fellow of the Agriculture Institute of Canada.

There is hardly an individual at Carleton University who is not aware of Timothy Pychyl’s outstanding work with and support of students and his contribution to teaching excellence. His initiatives in the development of courses and curriculum are innovative, and have resulted in substantial change at Carleton. His contribution goes beyond the limits of Carleton through his participatory educational research with local high school teachers and faculty from the University of Ottawa, as well as his partnership with local high schools for which he received an Individual Award of Excellence in 1995.

Tim’s teaching evaluations are among the highest at the university and are earned for his work in large lecture courses (including courses on television) and in small seminars. Students’ testimonials are clear evidence that he has found techniques that bring out their passions, encourage their interests and challenge their thinking. He goes well beyond the call of duty in helping them to develop their intellectual abilities and self-confidence in all aspects of their academic pursuits. He carries one of the heaviest undergraduate supervision loads in the Department of Psychology. He is a pioneer and leader in the introduction of computer and communication technologies into the curriculum. He served as a member of the Committee on Teaching in the Electronic World. His exemplary teaching skills won him a Carleton University Teaching Excellence Award in 1995 and an Ontario Confederation of Faculty Associations’ Teaching Award in 1998.

In September 1996, Tim was appointed as a Teaching and Learning Scholar in the Teaching and Learning Resource center where he developed a comprehensive training program in university teaching for both teaching assistants and Ph.D. students planning an academic career. He researched and designed the graduate Seminar in University Teaching, organized a series of teaching seminars for the School of Business, and presented at the annual Teaching Expo, a week-long event showcasing teaching innovations. Tim regularly shares his experiences with colleagues in any number of workshops and presentations for new faculty, sessional lectures, and teaching assistants.

My own research and teaching web site can be found at www.carleton.ca/~tpychyl. This is the “Procrastination Research Group” which summarizes my research in psychology and provides links to my online teaching as well as my teaching dossier and CV.

Ron is a dedicated, effective, and innovative teacher who cares deeply about his students and their learning experiences. He developed innovative approaches to the teaching of landscape architectural design and engineering that utilizes a wide range of techniques, from case study and problem-based to role play and more traditional studio consultation and lectures. He was deeply involved in curriculum and instructional development at the University of Guelph. Recently he played a significant part in the development of materials for evaluation of teaching as part of the Promotion, Merit and Tenure increase system at the University of Guelph. Over the past twenty-five years he has worked with the Alumni Association on a number of campus design projects for which he has involved his students in experiential learning opportunities through actual design and construction of the proposals. Ron is the recipient of four teaching awards, including the Outstanding Educator Award from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture.

As the former chair of the University Senate International Committee and the Study Abroad and Exchange Program Committee, Ron conducted a thorough redesign of University policy and procedures for 65 student exchange programs, 7 semesters abroad programs and numerous department and college sponsored international field trips. He coordinated the exchange programs in the School of Landscape Architecture, which are some of the most active on campus. In 1998 he served as the Acting Director of the Center for International Programs.

As Director of Teaching Support Services, Ron brought about a complete change in the approach of faculty and staff towards the services of the office. The community now regards Teaching Support Services as a fundamentally important group who provide services to the teaching and learning enterprise on campus, including the particularly difficult challenge of making the undergraduate curriculum and experience more learner-centered. In addition to his work with a large number of teaching and learning communities, he has developed and presented over 55 university-wide workshops and seminars and his work in curriculum design and management is now used in professional programs at other universities. He publishes regularly in the areas of innovation in teaching and learning.