The inaugural and only two-time winner of his University Student Council’s Award of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Anton has also received the highest teaching honour that his university bestows. According to his students, he is: “absolutely great,” “amazing,” “incredible,” “thought- provoking,” “charismatic” — “an inspiration!”

Anton describes his philosophy of teaching as “critical, democratic and egalitarian. It deals with the dynamic tension between the individual and society, and highlights the need for individuals to be made aware of their social responsibilities.”

Anton is a teacher with reach, who has made his influence for good teaching felt far beyond the bounds of his home institution. From St. Petersburg , Russia to Suva , Fiji to Kingston , Jamaica and Havana , Cuba as well as elsewhere in Canada , he has forged strategic partnerships in support of effective teaching with regards to sensitive and controversial issues, such as ethnicity, race, religion and nationality. At Western, he has played a leadership role in the drafting of his university’s policies on race relations and sexual harassment.

He has been an ambassador for active, student-centered teaching practices with a focus on getting students to read, write, and think analytically. As a dedicated mentor of both students and colleagues, Anton has been described as a “teacher’s teacher.”

For Ken Bartlett, the world is his classroom, as is the community in which he lives. Others echo this view in recognizing his local and global spheres of influence.

The winner of several outstanding teaching awards from his faculty and university, he is especially proud of the Undergraduate Teaching Award that students adjudicate.

Ken wants his students to experience history first-hand, through primary source material. This is evident in his study-abroad program where multicultural students work in groups generating research from museum archives in London and Oxford . “I want my students not just to know what happened during the Renaissance, but to see the past through the eyes of people who lived in those years.”

Ken’s ability to engage students, whether it be in intimate first-year seminars or 500+ survey courses, resonates in his relationships with his peers. His commitment to support and recognize teaching at one of the largest research intensive universities in Canada is evident in his collaborative and transformative views on faculty development, in his personal contact with his peers, and in new initiatives. Thanks to Ken’s vision, the university plans to create an Academy of Teaching that will recognize a new university-wide rank equal to the rank of University Professor.

As founding Director of the Office of Teaching Advancement, Ken Bartlett’s vision of the world is a “classroom without walls, a universe of human interaction built on the extension of knowledge.”

In a relatively short period of time, David Dunne has managed to build bridges and lead initiatives that are remarkable and transformative. The ground-breaking student agency project is one example where students translate theory into practice by producing ads for clients, including the Salvation Army and the Alzheimer Society. Students work with the Ontario College of Art and Design as well as with industry leaders — an integrative experience that has students lining up for more.

Students consistently remark on David’s professionalism and the numerous ways in which he engages them. They also note his care and “respect for their time.” David’s numerous teaching excellence awards and curricular accomplishments are not only setting new standards in his faculty, but he is also the first one there to help his peers. His innovations extend to future faculty (a new course for Ph.D students to help them teach) as well as to his colleagues (co-founding the Teaching Effectiveness Centre).

David’s creative energies are valued beyond his institution and recognized in peer- reviewed publications including the Harvard Business Review , and, more recently, the STLHE Green Guide “Teaching With Cases,” which he co-authored with Kim Brooks.

David consistently demonstrates concrete ways of student-centered learning and contributing to the scholarship of teaching.

One word comes to mind when we think of Aline Germain-Rutherford: energy! Students and colleagues use these superlatives: ” The best professor I ever had ,” “a nuclear bomb,” “amazing teacher,” “do what you’re doing forever,” “overwhelming accomplishments .” Aline is one of the most intense and passionate teachers that students will ever have a chance to meet in their university lives. Aline is also known in both francophone and anglophone academic communities as a leading educational developer.

Aline is a second-language education specialist who earned her doctorate from the Sorbonne. During the past twenty years, Aline has created interactive learning environments using a unique blend of international collaborative research. Through that collaboration, she developed speech technology that helps students learn French online, technology that is now being used by undergraduate students in Canada, France, and the US.

As the Director of the University of Ottawa ‘s Centre for University Teaching, Aline channels her tremendous personal energy to her peers in many incredible ways. Aline is a founding member of the Institute for the Advancement of Teaching in Higher Education (IATHE), and she is a generous contributor to organizations that help make teaching count.

Georg Gunther transforms students: they write that he expands their minds and makes them think more about the universe. As one student put it, he “forever changed my life and outlook on things around me.” Though he is a creative advocate for mathematics – witness teaching strategies like his original problem-solving cartoon characters “Jack and Jill” –, his central concern is always with the student more than with the subject. As he states in his teaching philosophy, “I will be content if I open the minds of my students, not only to the beauty or utility of mathematics, but to the tremendous potential inherent in their own minds and souls, regardless of whether that potential expresses itself in the sciences or the humanities, in mathematics or music.”

Georg he has found practical ways to ensure that first-year students realize their minds’ and souls’ potential. Under Georg’s leadership, Wilfred Grenfell College began a program of Supplemental Instruction (SI) that targets “high risk” courses and then trains student leaders to offer peer support. For its first five years, Georg shepherded the project, and through his workshops and presentations across the country, he has become a leading advocate for Supplemental Instruction.

Georg has been recognized with Memorial’s President’s Award for Teaching and the AAU Distinguished Teacher Award.

He is known throughout his campus by his nickname, “Srini”. Srini is unique in many ways, not least because his students created an annual award for teaching excellence in his name. He was, of course, the inaugural winner of this award, one of many he has received in recognition of his superlative teaching.

Srini exudes enthusiasm, energy, and professionalism, coupled with a profound love of teaching and of his students who reciprocate with many endorsements of him as “the greatest teacher ever.” Not one negative comment can be found in pages and pages of glowing student assessments . . . they simply love him.

While assuming demanding administrative duties in support of his institution’s computer science program, he continues to teach five courses per year for which his students have rewarded him with an overall average teaching assessment of 4.94 out of 5 over a twelve-year period.

Srini is a prolific contributor to teaching workshops, panel discussions, and faculty orientation sessions. He has made major contributions to Dalhousie’s faculty and student mentoring programs and currently supervises the research activities of a large group of both graduate and undergraduate students.

Richard Schwier is a self-proclaimed teaching junkie whose passion for teaching and commitment to sound pedagogy have been enhancing student learning for years. An exceptional leader in the field of instructional technology, Richard is respected by a generation of learners and colleagues for his dedication, his compassion, his innovation, and his mentorship.

Whether he is teaching large classes or small ones, at a distance or up close, what distinguishes Rick is how seamlessly he integrates new research into his course content and uses it to initiate relevant discussion and to motivate students. As one colleague states, Rick demonstrates “a special gift for listening to his students, and encouraging and supporting them as they endeavor to find their place in the world of research, teaching, and learning.” In his reflections on his teaching, Rick states that “the most powerful technologies are the soft technologies – how we do things in the classroom, how we engage students, excite them, and empower them.”

Outside of the classroom, Rick has shared his insights and research on online learning communities with the rest of the world through his publications and workshops. Rick has also revised, redesigned, and implemented new programs within the College of Education and was instrumental in promoting a coordinated approach to instructional support services for faculty.

Forty-three years ago, after three sleepless nights worrying that he’d made a career mistake, John Thompson stepped into his first classroom; ten minutes later, he knew he wanted to teach for the rest of his life. And his sociology students –who, one after the other, write that his courses teach them mindfulness, openness, and civic responsibility — are very lucky that he did. He is the recipient of four major awards for teaching.

A leader on his campus and beyond, John has dedicated himself to changing the way student learning and faculty teaching are valued. His presentations, workshops and publications on topics such as the vocation, the evaluation, and the scholarship of teaching have that underlying theme in common: revaluing undergraduate education through attention to student development, and especially through attention to writing as critical thinking.

In fact, he encourages extensive student writing, from informal end-of-class “two-minute memos” to three-stage formal essays; and he regularly enters into the risk and vulnerability of student learning by composing an essay “live” as the students watch him write. And John recognizes the power of story in teaching, but, as one of his nominators writes, his goal, “rather than having students remember his stories, is for students to hear their own.”

Students wait in line at pre-registration to make sure they get into Brian Wagner’s first-year chemistry class, and no wonder. From his interactive anonymous quizzes to his writing-across-the-curriculum techniques to his use of real-life research in the classroom, Brian connects the student to chemistry and chemistry to the world. In1998, he won UPEI’s Merit Award for Excellence in Teaching, and his student evaluations include comments like “better than the best” and “Dr. Wagner, you are a chemistry god!”

But Brian’s passion goes beyond chemistry; he was a founding member of UPEI’s Environmental Studies Group, and he team-teaches in the core course of a new Environmental Studies Minor. That collaborative spirit extends to his colleagues on campus and beyond. Even with a heavy load as Chair of his Department, Brian volunteers each year as a teaching mentor in UPEI’s New Faculty Program. A leader in promoting active learning even in large science classes, Brian shares his passion for teaching with international university and college teachers as a facilitator in UPEI’s Faculty Development Summer Institute on Active Learning.