Janet Andersen Lecture Award
Established by the Midstates Consortium for Math and Science in 20082011 Nomination deadline: April 4, 2011
www.mathsciconsortium.org
Professor Janet Andersen was a beloved faculty member in the Hope College Mathematics Department and served enthusiastically as the Midstates Consortium Director for five years before her life ended tragically in an automobile accident in November 2005. As a teacher and scholar, Janet was devoted to providing creative, high quality learning experiences for her students, and she herself was always learning as she was teaching. As Consortium Director, she looked for ways to connect with and support natural science faculty, both new and experienced.
To honor Janet Andersen's dedication and commitment to her work with students and faculty in her teaching, research and service to the Consortium, the Janet Andersen Lecture Award was established in 2008. The Midstates Consortium will choose one or two faculty members from one or two of the Consortium member institutions each year to present the Janet Andersen Lecture at one or both of the fall Undergraduate Research Symposia on a topic of his or her expertise. The award recipient(s) will also receive a $300 honorarium.
The Midstates Consortium invites faculty, students, staff and administrators to nominate faculty members in the Consortium for the Janet Andersen Lecture award. We encourage nominations for faculty members of any rank who have vigorous research programs involving undergraduates, who are exceptional mentors for undergraduate research students, who are engaged and skilled teachers, or who create interdisciplinary research opportunities for undergraduate students.
The Consortium will accept nominations for the 2011 award until the beginning of April 2011. The award recipients will be selected at this spring's Executive Committee Meeting on April 16.
Please send a letter of nomination with relevant details about the faculty member and a recent CV of the nominee to Karen N. Pearson, Midstates Consortium Director at nordellpearson@hope.edu.
Call (616-395-7217) or email Karen with any questions.
2011 Janet Andersen Lecture Award Winners
Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science
Professor George Lisensky
Department of Chemistry
Beloit College, Beloit, WI
Professor George Lisensky was selected for the 2011 Janet Andersen Award in the Physical Sciences. The following few paragraphs are taken from the letter of nomination submitted by his colleagues at Beloit.
“George has been a member of the Chemistry Department at Beloit College since 1980. He is an active scholar with research interests and activities ranging from bio-inorganic chemistry to materials science to innovative introductory chemistry curriculum development to the cutting-edge of the interdisciplinary field of nanochemistry. He is recognized as an international leader in nanochemistry education. George has 69 publications to date, 15 of which have Beloit College student co-authors. He has given hundreds of workshop, conference, and invited presentations in 4 continents. His development of a novel course in Nanochemistry earned particular mention and kudos from the American Chemical Society Committee on Professional Training in 2010. He has active and on-going professional affiliations with the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at UW-Madison, Nanotechnology Informal Science Education Network (NISE NET), and the Center for Workshops in the Chemical Sciences (CWCS).
George routinely involves undergraduate students in his research, both during the academic semester and during the summer, thus he has advised about one student per semester and one student per summer for decades. This is a significant achievement given the unusually high teaching load that George
carries. Since these research projects typically result in new experiments or projects that become incorporated in his courses (most notably courses in Nanochemistry, Solid State Chemistry, and Introductory Chemistry), George’s collaborative research directly informs his teaching. George was awarded the Phee Boon Kang Prize for Innovation in Teaching with Technology in 2010 for the software packages that he wrote for his course in Environmental, Analytical, and Geochemistry. He won this prestigious Beloit College award
in 2002 as well for development of hundreds of Quicktime based instructional materials (movies and animations) that are now used at institutions around the world. George stresses a hands-on, minds-on educational philosophy, and states that “watching is not learning unless you become involved.” George has demonstrated excellence as a teacher throughout his career as further evidenced by receiving the Beloit College Teacher of the Year in 1988 and the Chemical Manufacturers Catalyst Teaching Award in 1996.”
Biological Sciences and Psychology
Professor William R. Hammer
Fryxell Chair and Director of the Geology Museum
Augustana College, Rock Island, IL
Professor Bill Hammer was selected for the 2011 Janet Andersen Award in the Biological Sciences. The following few paragraphs are taken from the letter of nomination submitted by his colleagues at Beloit.
“Bill Hammer has been a member of the faculty at Augustana College since 1981. In those 30 years he has been actively engaged in teaching geology and paleontology and research with undergraduates. For twenty-nine years Bill has lead a summer undergraduate field research course to White River Badlands of South Dakota and Nebraska. This is a dual level course where students with no field experience work alongside geology majors and minors. Bill’s “Dinosaur and Extinction” course is the most sought after laboratory science course for non-majors; many students cite it as one of their favorite undergraduate courses.
His research is focused on Mesozoic Vertebrates of the Beardmore Glacier Region in Antarctica and he returned for the eighth time with his largest expedition group in December 2010. During this recent expedition, they collected over 5,000 lbs of matrix with bones, including more remains of previous discovered animals plus two new dinosaurs, a large early sauropod and a small but intriguing four to five foot long primitive ornithiscian. All of the material is currently in transit and will be on campus sometime in April. His current grant will fund two students this
summer. In recent years, he has worked with fourteen undergraduates of which nine have gone on an Antarctic expedition. Bill also maintains diverse research collaborations with colleagues from the University of Alberta, the University of
Washington, the Field Museum of Natural History and the Capetown Museum in South Africa.
In addition to teaching and research, Bill is Research Associate at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and directors of Augustana’s Center for Polar Studies and Fryxell Geology Museum, which has one of the most extensive collections in the Midwest. “