Students Honored for Teaching Excellence

In keeping with its commitment to excellence, the Mathematics Department annually recognizes Graduate Teaching Assistants for their outstanding teaching.

Professors Carl Cowen, Department Head, and Steve Bell, Graduate Committee Chair (both seated) with 1999-2000 Excellence in Teaching Award recipients (back row left to right) Julie Shafer, Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer, William Butske, Lucian Sega, Ryo Ichi Osawa, and Song Foh Chew.

Teaching assistants William Butske, Song Foh Chew, Ryo Ichi Osawa, Lucian Sega, Julie Shafer, and Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer received cash prizes of $250 at an awards presentation in the Mathematics Department on November 18. Winners of the annual "Excellence in Teaching" award are selected on the basis of student evaluations and the evaluations of their faculty teaching mentors.

Mathematics teaching assistants are not only instructors, but are graduate students as well. PUrview asked the prize winners what challenges this dual role presents.

"Having time to prepare for teaching is the most difficult thing about being a TA," said Chew.

"Being a TA takes a lot of time away from your own research, so you really have to set your priorities," agreed Osawa.

Zurn-Birkhimer said that being a good TA requires a lot of dedication. "You really have to like the students and like the interaction between student and teacher." For Zurn-Birkhimer, becoming a TA altered her career goals. "I thought I wanted to go into industry, but when I started teaching I found I really enjoyed it. So, I decided to stay in school and get my Ph.D. so I can teach at the university level."

Mathematics Professor Steve Bell, who chairs the Mathematics Department graduate committee, recently calculated that all of the TAs for the Mathematics Department could stand elbow to elbow and completely encircle the water sculpture in front of Hovde Hall.

"Math professors aren't the type to go up and hug a TA, but we certainly do value what our teaching assistants contribute to our program," said Bell. "Even though a number of Purdue's 65 math professors teach calculus in lecture sections with over 400 students in them, it is still true that math TAs teach more people more hours of math per week than the entire faculty does. We know they do it well. These six do it extremely well."

Student Achievements

The Graduate School has selected Razvan Velich to receive a 12-month Puskas Fellowship starting fall 2000. The fellowship is designated for Purdue students who are citizens of Romania. Recipients are chosen on the basis of academic excellence by a selection committee comprised of faculty and administrators chosen by the Office of Research and Graduate School. Veliche came to Purdue in August 1996. He has passed qualifiers and Advanced Topics and is working with Prof. Arapura in algebraic geometry.

Ruth Enoch received a $500 Graduate Student Fellowship Incentive Award from the Graduate School. Ms. Enoch came to Purdue in June 1999. She received her master¹s degree in 1975, laid out of school to raise a family, and was a math instructor at University of Arkansas at Little Rock for fifteen years before applying for our Ph.D. program. She is interested in algebra and topology, but has yet to decide which area she will work in.

Magdi Asgari is scheduled to finish his Ph.D. in August and will join the University of Michigan faculty in the fall as a T.H. Hildebrandt Research Assistant Professor. Asgari is also the recipient of a three-month summer ³Liftoff² fellowship funded by Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI), which will help ease the transition from student to faculty member at Michigan. Asgari, a student of Freydoon Shahidi, is currently finishing his thesis ³On Holomorphy of Local Langlands L-functions.²

Two other recent Ph.D.¹s have accepted academic positions for fall 2000:

Chris Leisner, Dartmouth University

Yangsuk Ko, University of Illinois