The University of Texas System Board of Regents has awarded six faculty members at UTMB with the board's highest honor in recognition of their performance in the classroom and their dedication to innovation and advancing excellence.
The Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Awards recognize faculty members at UT System institutions who have demonstrated extraordinary performance and innovation in the classroom and laboratory. The awards are among the largest in the nation, and given the depth and breadth of talent across the UT System, this awards program is also one of the nation’s most competitive.
“We are extremely proud of these members of our faculty,” said UTMB’s Dr. Danny O. Jacobs, executive vice president and provost, and dean of the School of Medicine. “They are committed to educational excellence and dedicated to our students.”
UT Regents chairman Gene Powell said the awards demonstrate the Board’s commitment to outstanding teaching. “These are world-class educators who are critical to the success of UT health institutions and who are critical to the ultimate success of their students. And the students they mentor and teach will become this state’s future outstanding health care providers,” he said.
This is the second year the Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Awards have been conferred to faculty at UT System’s six health institutions. Each of these faculty members will receive a $25,000 award.
Faculty members undergo a series of rigorous evaluations by students, peer faculty and external reviewers. The review panels consider a range of activities and criteria in their evaluations of a candidate’s teaching performance, including classroom expertise, curricula quality, innovative course development and student learning outcomes.
The Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Awards complement a wide range of system-wide efforts that underscore the Board of Regents’ commitment to ensuring the UT System is a place of intellectual exploration and discovery, educational excellence and unparalleled opportunity.
The UTMB Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award recipients for 2013:
Dr. Judith F. Aronson
Professor and Vice Chairwoman for Education, Department of Pathology
My goals as a teacher are to instill enthusiasm for learning, to be a role model for lifelong learning and to provide moral support for learners. I aspire to be the "guide on the side," promoting active student engagement in tasks that yield a sense of discovery. I rejoice when a learner asks a question that I cannot answer, for it means that the learner has become curious about something and has formulated a detailed question with which to interrogate "the knowledge cloud."
Anne Hudson Jones
Professor and Harris L. Kempner Chair in the Humanities in Medicine, Institute for the Medical Humanities
After decades of teaching I believe more than ever in the intrinsic worth and transformative potential of the humanities to help us understand what it means to be human, honor enduring values in a world of rapid technological change and aspire to virtue in our personal and professional lives. As a teacher, I am simultaneously an experienced guide and a fellow seeker who can learn from the thoughtful responses of others. Teaching and studying the humanities is an ongoing endeavor, the work and joy of a lifetime.
Brian T. Miller
Distinguished Teaching Professor, Division of Anatomy, Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology
In my experience, the most effective teachers are those who possess a profound knowledge of their subject and have the ability to synthesize, organize and present complex information in an engaging and lucid manner. Moreover, such teachers continually strive to demonstrate how to develop and use the knowledge and skills that will be critical to their students’ professional success.
Linda R. Rounds
Professor, Betty Lee Evans Distinguished Professor in Nursing
Distinguished Teaching Professor, School of Nursing
I believe that education on any level is a collaborative process enriched by the experiences and contributions of both faculty and students. Faculty should be learners as well as teachers in this process. My goal is to create learning experiences that are interesting, innovative and stimulating such that the student develops an interest in continuing to learn more in a course or a lifetime.
Dr. Judith L. Rowen
Associate Dean for Educational Affairs and Professor, Department of Pediatrics
I love what I do, and as an infectious disease physician I believe enthusiasm is contagious. Whenever I teach, whoever the learners may be, I strive to make the encounter fun. By the same token, I hold my trainees to high standards. I believe it is an amazing privilege to be a physician and have patients invite us into their lives. I try to instill that same passion and sense of awe in those I teach.
Laura L. Rudkin
Professor, Preventive Medicine and Community Health
Academics who approach their teaching duties as a form of scholarship will think more carefully about the end goals of curricula. In our programs, we aim to produce competent and caring health care professionals and researchers who will act to improve individual and population health and reduce health disparities. To quote a Carnegie Foundation report, we educate students “to contribute to the life of their times.”