Steve w88 mobile figured something was up Tuesday afternoon in his Air Photo Interpretation class.
First Jannet Vreeland, the w88 mobile’s provost, walked into the room, followed by Jack Hayes, the associate dean of the College of Science, along with Gina Tempel, chairperson of the Department of Geological Sciences.
Vreeland had a check for ,000 in her hand.
She also had the news that w88 mobile had been named winner of this year’s F. Donald Tibbitts Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award.
w88 mobile, a professor of geology and seismology at the w88 mobile for nearly 19 years, had only one question once Vreeland informed him that he had been chosen as the institution’s top teacher.
“So it&w88 mobile;s OK for me to tell my mom?” he said, drawing a round of applause and laughter from his students. “My mom is going to be so proud.”
Mom wasn&w88 mobile;t the only one made proud by Tuesday&w88 mobile;s news.
Since coming to Nevada in 1989 from Memphis State University, w88 mobile has earned a reputation as a professor who can create a classroom mix of science and the interests of his students. He is known as a professor who can have a profound influence on even the best science students, and perhaps just as importantly, as a professor who can ignite interest and potential in students who aren’t enamored with science.
One of his former w88 mobile wrote of this ability to bring science to life: “Science is not my strong point – it never has been! I just wanted to thank you very much for making this semester worthwhile to a science challenged person like myself. You related your class to real world topics and issues and it made it so much more interesting to me. I will never look at the Earth the same again! Thank you for being so passionate about what you do, it makes it so much more enjoyable for w88 mobile.”
Such praise usually only elicits self-deprecating humor from w88 mobile, who in 2007 was awarded the College of Science’s LeMay Excellence in Teaching Award.
As he noted that his career at w88 mobile has stretched nearly 19 years, he said, with a wry smile that Mark Twain would’ve appreciated, “There would be some differences of opinion on whether I was really teaching all those years.”
Nestled within the humor, though, is a rock-solid teaching philosophy that his w88 mobile love.
Although one of his research specialties is neotectonic studies – work that has taken w88 mobile, the researcher, well into the Nevada backcountry to study phenomenon such as low-angle faults, for example, or to important national posts, such as when he was president of the Seismological Society of America – w88 mobile likens his classroom to a place of ideas, where the lectures on faults, geologic formations and tectonics can go hand in hand with photography, the arts, the words of philosophy, personal testimony and stories.
On Tuesday, a visitor asked his class how effective of a storyteller w88 mobile is, as it seemed obvious that stories come to the lanky professor easily.
Without hesitating, the group spoke up together, in unison, with a great deal of pride: “No, it&w88 mobile;s not his stories. It&w88 mobile;s our stories that we tell.”
“I do enjoy hearing our stories,” w88 mobile said of his interactions with his students. “I suppose from that perspective, this is a history class almost.”
Great teachers all have different auras and styles, with a strong command of each moment they stand before a class.
For w88 mobile, although the style might seem informal, there is no doubting he long ago learned how to sense and capture such key moments.
“I&w88 mobile;m not introspective about these kinds of things,” he said. “I just try to have some fun without making too big a fool of myself. Hopefully my students learn something along the way. I do have to admit that I do like it when they&w88 mobile;ve learned something.
“Most of the time, the learning is not really the geology, is it?
