SFA Teaching Excellence Honorees to Speak

Five winners of the 2003 Stephen F. Austin State University Teaching Excellence Awards will speak Thursday, Feb. 26, from 3 to 5 p.m. in the University Center, Regents Suite A. Sponsored by the New Faculty Orientation Committee, the seminar is open to anyone interested in classroom strategies for success.

Award winners Drs. Randi Cox, Sammi Smith, Gary Mayer, Leon Young and Dan Bruton will share their insight into effective teaching.

Cox will talk about motivating students in core curriculum classes. As an assistant professor of history, she represents the College of Liberal Arts. Her doctorate is from Indiana University, and she teaches upper level and graduate courses on Russian and Soviet history, including a senior seminar on the Russian revolution. She recently received a Faculty Research Grant, and in the summer she will be going to Moscow to complete her book on Soviet consumer advertising in the 1920s.

Smith, professor of accounting in the College of Business, will discuss the essential elements of the educational process. He has a doctorate with fields in accounting, economics and finance from the University of Arkansas. He is a CPA licensed to practice in Texas and has published numerous papers and articles in the fields of accounting and financial management. Smith has done various consulting projects in accounting, finance and economics including litigation support.

Mayer, associate professor of communication in the College of Applied Arts and Sciences, will explore the use of humor and fictitious characters to spark students’ interest. He has a doctorate in English from Baylor and is a member of Delta Chi social fraternity, Society of Professional Journalists and Kappa Tau Alpha National Journalism Honor Society. He advises the SFA chapter of Delta Chi.

Young will speak about connecting undergraduate instruction with the master's degree thesis option. He is a professor of agriculture in the College of Education and is director of SFA’s soil, plant and water analysis laboratory. His doctorate is from Iowa State University in Ames in soil fertility and animal nutrition.

Bruton, the winner of the overall 2003 University Teaching Excellence Award, is an associate professor of physics and astronomy in the College of Sciences and Mathematics. He will end the seminar with hands-on team building exercises for the classroom. Bruton has been teaching at SFA since receiving his doctorate at Texas A&M University in 1996. He was instrumental in the discovery of a previously undocumented asteroid now named Nacogdoches. His research interests include the astronomy and photometry of minor planets and X-ray diffraction.

The two other 2003 Teaching Excellence Award winners, Dr. Alan Nielsen and Dr. Gary Kronrad, are teaching classes during the seminar and are not able to attend the presentations.

For more information, contact Dr. Dean Coble at (936) 468-3301 or e-mail dcoble@sfasu.edu.

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