Fifteen University teachers will be honored this week by Student Government officials James Vermalen and Aimee Verrette for outstanding work throughout this semester.
After a month-long teacher appreciation drive, Verrette said she and four other SG members – Vermalen, Jenny Byrd, Ashley Guidry and Tammy Sam – looked at more than 50 nominations from students for 31 different teachers.
She said they first grouped multiple nominations, which were for about six teachers, and selected those teachers as winners. After that they examined the quality of the other nominations and chose the rest of the winners.
Vermalen said the selection committee chose those teachers who they thought displayed a lot of attention to their students and to student learning.
“We looked at those teachers who students felt did the best job in conveying information in class and made their classes interesting,” Vermalen said.
Vermalen and Verrette said there were no bogus entries, and they were very impressed with what students wrote about their teachers.
“All the nominations were genuine as far as we could tell,” Vermalen said. “Some were short, but none of them were like, ‘I want to nominate her because she’s hot.'”
The group plans to acknowledge the selected teachers with a letter of their award and a paperweight with their names. All teachers nominated will get a letter of their nomination as well as what students said about them in the nominations.
The students’ identifications will be anonymous so that their comments will not affect their grades or make teachers think students are sucking up for better grades, Vermalen said.
Student Government also is planning to present the awards this week in class so the students can see their teachers being commended.
Ruth Bowman, a speech communication professor who has received her award, did not want the extra attention from her class when Verrette and Guidry presented her with the award.
Other recipients, such as James Byo, a music professor, and William Gregg, a physics instructor, have not gotten their awards yet but say they are excited to receive such an award from students.
Byo said it is always nice to get positive feedback from his students, and it is important to have student-teacher interaction on the same wavelength.
“At first thought, a couple of faces come to mind and it reminds me of how fortunate I am to work with great students,” he said. “This wouldn’t be positive if I didn’t have students who were willing and ready to receive the information I’m giving.”
Gregg said he is extremely excited to get the recognition and he appreciates his students very much.
“I’m an instructor so I don’t do research very much, but I spend 99 percent of my time with my students,” Gregg said. “I’m dedicated and they can tell that. I respect my students and they give me the same respect.”
He said he tries to make his classes fun and interesting and give his students things they can use to help them in everyday life.
“My enthusiasm spills over into the classroom, and it’s great to know my students appreciate that,” Gregg said.