Teaching Assistants Honored for Excellence in Teaching

Eight graduate students have been honored for excellence in teaching in 1996-97.

Award-winners are: David Ebenbach, psychology; David Flaspohler, wildlife ecology; Christopher M. Kribs, mathematics; Yuka Kumagai, East Asian languages and literature; J. Christopher Pires, botany; Lise Rempel, French and Italian; Sonya Y. Skoog, geology and geophysics; and Jeffrey Zimmerman, geography.

Recipients were presented with certificates and honoraria of $1,000 each at an April 21 luncheon.

Fannie LeMoine, associate dean for the humanities in the Graduate School and chair of the committee that selected the winners, called the teaching award process one of her most pleasant experiences as associate dean.

“There were so many excellent candidates, it was difficult to choose the best,” she said. “That’s testimony to the quality of our graduate students and of this university.”

Geography Professor James Burt, a selection committee member, added that the winners were honored for their effectiveness as teachers beyond just being extraordinary lecturers. “We were impressed with their commitment to developing critical thinking and learning, rather than just delivering knowledge,” he said.

Ebenbach, who has assisted in six different psychology courses, was called by one award-winning instructor “quite simply the most compassionate and inspirational TA I have worked with.” Flaspohler, a Ph.D. candidate in ecology of forest birds, has assisted in six courses in wildlife ecology and received superb evaluations from students. Kribs, say colleagues, teaches “the hard stuff”: calculus 221, 333 and 223. He emerged as the best among the math department’s 130 TAs.

Kumagai has had primary responsibility for three of the five Japanese language courses she has taught. Talented, hard-working and innovative, she does things such as using puppets as instructional aids. Pires was credited in botany as an exceptional teacher who by his example and hard work has changed the way others — TAs and professors — teach. Rempel has taught seven different French courses and was praised as a “vivacious, innovative teacher” with “impeccable organization,” “boundless energy” and “tremendous creativity” by supervising professors.

Skoog has assisted in seven courses in geology and geophysics. Students regularly come in independently to professors to sing her praises, and one 500-level professor said she improved a course he had taught for 33 years. Zimmerman, a geography TA, was called by his adviser “the very best TA that I have encountered during my over 20 years at Madison.” He also was called “engaging, funny, and unpredictable.”