When busy students take time to craft nominations in support of their favorite teachers, you know that the praise is well deserved. Some laud the way their professors make a one-on-one connection; others point to mesmerizing lecture techniques or an ability to put a practical spin on conceptual courses. Whatever the focus of the letters, it's clear that the students — as much as the university — value stellar skills in the classroom.

Since 1992, the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association has recognized university faculty who excel in the art of instruction with its Excellence in Teaching Awards. The award allows each academic division of the university to publicly recognize the critical importance of teaching.

The Alumni Association annually provides funds to each school — this year, the amount was $2,000 — that can be given to one winner, shared by up to four or attached to another, divisional teaching award. The nomination and selection processes differ by school, but students must be involved in the selection process.

The following faculty members are recipients of the 2005 Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Awards.

 

Bloomberg School of Public Health

Vicente Navarro, Public Health PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Vicente Navarro, Health Policy and Management and International Health; small class size

Vicente Navarro won a teaching award back before the Golden Apple — as the award is known in the School of Public Health — was even invented. "The students gave me an award for 'the best course taught in a foreign language,'" he remembers. "My Spanish accent was very strong and still is. It took 10 years to be awarded the best teacher for the best course without reference to my accent." He won his first Golden Apple in 1982 and the second in 1990.
    This year, he is receiving the Golden Apple for his course called The Political Economy of Social Inequalities and Its Consequences for Health and Quality of Life.
    Navarro, a professor in Health Policy and Management and in International Health, was invited to join the faculty of the school in 1965, after leaving Spain in 1962 and studying economics in Sweden and social policy in Great Britain. He says that he had always been interested in academia and that teaching happens in many ways. "I think teaching takes place in different forms, not just in classrooms," he says. "Teaching is interacting, putting forth your ideas and seeing how [students] react."
    Navarro's students see him as a teacher committed to his cause. "He makes public health issues mean something and puts them in a context that is tangible and helps you understand things in the real world," says Gila Neta, a doctoral student who took Navarro's winning course this past year. Neta says that Navarro, in his class, drew upon his experience as a consultant to Hillary Clinton on her health care reform plan and as part of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition. "If it weren't for Dr. Navarro, there would be a significant gap in the school in terms of the politics of health."
    Amanda Vogel, a doctoral student who was Navarro's teaching assistant for Politics of Health Policy, agrees. "He's an idealist and committed to social justice issues. That comes through in his scholarship and his teaching," she says, citing that her class had explored in depth the politics behind public health events. These included President Bush's Clear Skies initiative, as well as bioterrorism response policy, scientific integrity in federal policy-making, the spread of managed care in Latin America, gun control policy and prescription drug re-importation.
    Doctoral student Sule Calikoglu also was a teaching assistant in the course for which Navarro won. "Most people are talking about inequities in health, but very few are talking about the political determinants of health and inequalities," she says. "In other classes, we hide our values behind the claims of scientific objectivity, but Navarro points out that science is not neutral, and public health is politics in its most profound sense."
    And he encourages students to think about how to use what they learn in the world. "He forces you to think critically so that you can apply what you learn. He says that the most important thing is what you do with it. Students like that," she says. She remembers when Navarro read to the class an e-mail he'd received from a former student, a doctor now working in Haiti. The doctor wrote about the ways social class determines health care in Haiti and how the political and economic context of the country was affecting health of the population. "Dr. Navarro likes to bring social activism to class and share his experience in academia as well as in politics."
— Kristi Birch

Stephen Teret, Public Health PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Stephen Teret, Health Policy and Management; medium class size

Although Stephen Teret remembers being scared out of his wits just before he taught his first class, in 1979, he was even more agitated after this first-ever teaching experience.
    "I was a trial lawyer back then," says Teret, professor of health policy and management and director of the Center for Law and the Public's Health. "Trying cases in the courtroom had been my principal occupation. So, at the end of that class, I was quite upset when the students simply got up and left. I found myself wanting to run after them, shouting, 'Wait a minute! You can't just walk out without telling me if I won or lost!'"
    There's no longer any doubt that Teret is a winner: He's just garnered his third Golden Apple Award for excellence in teaching. He says this third one is especially sweet.
    "The first time I won, I thought to myself, I'm glad I got it, but it's a shame I pulled the wool over everyone's eyes, because I don't deserve it. The second time, I thought, Funny that I could fool them twice. I've been here 25 years and got my first Golden Apple in 1984 and the second in 1989, so this third one relieved my suspicion that I obtained the first two fraudulently."
    Teret believes that a good teacher's most important attribute is the ability to convince students that the teacher is speaking to each of them individually. And the only way to do that, he says, is to genuinely feel that's what you're doing. "The very worst class I was ever in as a student, I got the feeling the entire class could have snuck out of the room and the teacher wouldn't have noticed."
    Teret eschews PowerPoint and all other slide shows. He likes to keep the lights up in the classroom, talk directly to the students and look into their eyes so he can determine whether they get it. He points out that an instructor who uses slides or PowerPoint often turns away from the students to look at the screen. "It's a mistake," he says, "to let a presentation drive what you're saying, rather than you deciding what you need to tell the class at that given moment."
    Teret never set out to become a teacher, but he always thought it to be a noble profession, and today he says it's a good fit. "Whenever I travel and meet new people and they ask, 'What do you do?' I say, 'I'm a teacher.'"
— Rod Graham

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Marie Diener-West, Public Health PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Marie Diener-West, Biostatistics; large class size

Marie Diener-West, the Helen Abbey and Margaret Merrell Professor of Biostatistics Education, is no stranger to the Golden Apple. This year's winner in the large class category, she will receive her fifth. Diener-West is a co-instructor of Statistical Methods in Public Health, a four-term course sequence serving as a basic introduction to biostatistics. It aims to teach students how to use statistical concepts, interpret data in public health and medical literature, and develop data analysis skills. Diener-West also co-teaches Quantitative Methods, the school's first Internet-based course.
    "This school has the most fantastic group of students," she says. "They are so motivated and have such unique backgrounds. It is great to witness the light bulb moments when biostatistics becomes understandable and fun for them."
    Diener-West says the biggest challenge to teaching an introductory biostatistics course is dispelling a common initial belief by incoming students that biostatistics is an intimidating and unfamiliar topic. Using examples from current academic journals and other publications, Diener-West attempts to show students how biostatistics plays a role in their everyday lives.
    Over the years, students have displayed creative ways of making biostatistics fun by writing biostatistics poetry, a rap song and a one-act play — and one student even knitted a hat that included statistical symbols in the pattern design.
    "When students express biostatistics concepts artistically ... they realize that biostatistics goes beyond the classroom in many ways," says Diener-West, smiling widely.
    During four of the past five years, a Biostatistics faculty member teaching a portion of the Statistical Methods course sequence has received a Golden Apple award. Diener-West received her fourth for teaching the series in 2001.
— Kenna L. Lowe

 

Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

Daniel Deudney, Arts and Sciences PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Daniel Deudney, Political Science, and Stephen Dixon, Writing Seminars

The selection committee for the Excellence in Teaching Award in the School of Arts and Sciences normally has a difficult time choosing an award winner, with so many nominations and letters of support, but this year proved especially difficult, says Adam Falk, interim dean of the school and a past winner of the award himself.
    After reviewing the initial list of 33 nominations — 15 more than last year — the committee narrowed that number to nine finalists. After more work, the committee "felt that there were two candidates that stood out beyond the others," Falk says. "It was very hard to choose between them."
    So the committee picked both.
    By doing so, Falk says, it was honoring two very well-deserving faculty members and also honoring two different brands of excellence in teaching, one being the large, lecture format and the other being the small, workshop brand of teaching. "The committee values both of those types of teaching excellence," Falk says.
    So both Daniel Deudney, an associate professor of political science, and Stephen Dixon, a professor in the Writing Seminars, will receive this year's award.
    Both received strong letters of recommendation from current students, alumni and even other faculty. Of Dixon, one Writing Seminars major said, "He uses his many years of experience in fiction writing to give his students a real sense of quality — and marketability — of their work. Beyond this, Professor Dixon has a rapport with his students that really sets him apart from other professors."
    A former student, who was allowed to take Dixon's class while still in high school and who now is a senior at another university, wrote, "While I have taken a number of wonderful writing seminars, I have yet to meet a professor who encouraged and motivated my development as a writer the way Professor Dixon did."
    Another student noted that Dixon is generous to a fault with his one-on-one time with students, even though he himself is a prolific and accomplished author. "For a professional author who writes as much as he does, it is a huge sacrifice to give as much time as he does to undergraduates. His door is always open."
    Dixon was also praised for his outstanding preparation, students remarking that it was clear he reads each work in depth before class sessions.
    Likewise, Deudney received high marks from his supporters for crafting carefully organized lectures and for an engaging lecture style that draws students into the material. He was also noted for being generous with his time with students.
    One student wrote, "He always stays after class until the last student leaves, and this is usually up to an hour because Professor Deudney actually holds conversations with students."
    "He has so much energy and poise in his speech that there were times in class that I seriously wondered why he isn't actually a delegate in the United Nations," another student wrote. "He just has a powerful presence. The second he entered the room, eyes were glued to him, and he had our minds in the palm of his hand."
    A 2004 graduate noted, "Professor Deudney is as skilled in guiding and sharpening seminar discussions in graduate courses as he is in delivering fascinating lectures in large undergraduate classes," adding that his "meticulous attention given to preparation results in highly lucid and exceptionally informative lectures."
— Glenn Small

 

Peabody Institute

Robert van Sice, Peabody

Robert van Sice, Percussion

Robert van Sice, a member of Peabody's percussion faculty, will receive the Excellence in Teaching Award at Peabody's graduation ceremony on May 26.
    The award honors a man who is known as one of the world's finest marimba players. He has premiered more than 100 new works for marimba at venues ranging from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam to Peabody's own Friedberg Hall.
    In his teaching, van Sice can draw on a wealth of practical experience from his years as principal percussionist with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra in Spain or principal timpanist of the Cape Town Symphony in South Africa to his position, since 1993, as director of the World Percussion Festival in Brussels.
    The successes of his former Peabody students in winning competitions and, most importantly, jobs, provide eloquent testimony to van Sice's commitment to them. "There is a tangible difference between a teacher who knows a lot and a teacher who truly motivates," says one. "When someone becomes a student of Bob, they take on a lifelong relationship."
    Another commented, "More interested in teaching his students how to teach themselves than to impress them with his virtuosity, lessons with Bob are often ear- and mind-opening experiences."
    In addition, over the past few years, Robert van Sice has helped create a new percussion studio space at Peabody and greatly increased the size and quality of the studio's instrument collection. This has led to some highly innovative programming that has raised the profile of the Percussion Department and energized its students.
— Anne Garside

 

School of Advanced International Studies

Winners TBA at Commencement.

 

School of Medicine

Stewart Hendry, Medicine PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Stewart Hendry, Neuroscience

When asked about his favorite aspect of teaching medical neuroscience, Stewart Hendry responds without hesitation that it's the students.
    "For six weeks out of the year, I get 30 or 40 of the brightest and most fascinating people on the planet," says Hendry, a professor of neuroscience. "I seriously admire and enjoy talking to them, and many become friends."
    Hendry began teaching as a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis by tutoring medical students taking neuroscience. Having just wrestled through the course material himself, it was easy for him to relate to his students' struggle with major concepts. "The nervous system is difficult to understand, and I was able to recall those difficulties," he says.
    Each year the questions asked by his students give Hendry a new appreciation of their struggle to understand. It is his goal to ease their confusion, and he often stays extra hours for one-on-one discussion. "To make their understanding a little easier or better, to make them a little more knowledgeable, that's my contribution," he says.
    Hendry's relationship with Johns Hopkins medical students, whom he refers to as the "cream of the crop," is one of mutual respect, and the students respond well to his personable and humorous demeanor.
    Jay Baraban, a professor of neuroscience, notes that "Stewart's ratings as a lecturer and lab instructor are consistently off the scale." In fact, students from other sections often flock to his lab, sitting on top of benches or on the floor, anywhere they can grab a seat. Hendry patiently guides all his students through the course material, halting his lectures, usually with a humorous anecdote, to clarify points.
    Despite being recognized by other faculty and receiving this award, Hendry somehow maintains a sense of humility that resonates with his colleagues. Solomon Snyder, director of the Department of Neuroscience, confirms, "Indeed, his actions are always for the benefit of students, not his own personal advancement."
    But the best indicator of Hendry's enthusiasm for teaching might be his reaction to news articles in which someone characterizes his or her job as the "best on the planet." "That just can't be right," he says. "I have the best job on the planet."
— John Sales

 

School of Nursing

Jo Walrath, baccalaureate level

Jo Walrath has been a nurse for more than 30 years, yet she is relatively new to the teaching role. In 2003, Walrath left her position as vice president of patient care services at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., to become an assistant professor at the JHU School of Nursing.
    Just two years later, her students — inspired by her dedication to and passion for nursing — nominated her for a JHU Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award.
    Walrath, who from 1981 to 1998 served as director of Emergency Medicine and then director of Surgical Nursing at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, made the decision to transition from service to education as a way to pass on her nursing skills and knowledge to future generations of nurses.
    "We are at such a pivotal point in nursing in terms of the shortage," Walrath says. "These students made a choice to come into nursing at a time when there are so many other options out there. And they are so incredibly smart and talented; they can really make a difference.
    "My role is to launch them into a very realistic view of what the world is going to be like," she adds. "I help to build the bridge between education and practice."
    "Jo provides students with a tremendous role model reflecting integrity, honesty and pride in all that she does," wrote one student. "She makes me strive to be a better nurse, and while I have worked with many dedicated and inspiring professors at Hopkins School of Nursing, Jo Walrath lives on the top of the pyramid."
    Walrath received the Excellence in Teaching Award in the baccalaureate category. She teaches both baccalaureate and graduate students in Leadership in Contemporary Nursing Practice, Synthesis and Integration of Business of Nursing, and Team Work and Communications.
— Ming Tai

Joan Kub and Jo Walrath, Nursing

 

School of Professional Studies in Business and Education

Joseph Colantuoni, SPSBE PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Joseph Colantuoni, Graduate Division of Business

Excellent professors," remembers Joe Colantuoni, were what originally inspired him to teach. As a teaching assistant at the University of Virginia, where he earned his doctorate in economics, Colantuoni got further "hooked" on teaching by his interaction with students.
    It was word of mouth that led him to Hopkins to pursue what he describes as a "lifetime commitment" to teaching. Both Colantuoni's sister and brother-in-law earned Hopkins MBAs and urged him to investigate the Graduate Division of Business and Management for teaching opportunities. A senior financial economist in the Division of Insurance and Research for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Colantuoni met with Ken Yook, chair of the Business Division's Department of Finance. At first, this accomplished economist said he "felt a little intimidated by the experience of the students in the division," but Yook reassured him things would be fine.
    That they have been. Since 2002, Colantuoni has taught classes in corporate finance and financial institution risk management. He's also lectured on bond and stock valuation, financial statement forecasting and analysis, capital budgeting, financial risk measurement and management, optimal capital structure and dividend policy. He has also taught at three campuses — Columbia, Rockville and Washington, D.C. In particular, Colantuoni has participated in the school's unique academic partnership with consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton, where SPSBE instructors teach classes on the company's corporate campus.
    "The Booz Allen folks are great students, very driven, who integrate their work experience into that evening's classes," Colantuoni says. "I've learned a lot from them."
    Colantuoni mostly works with MBA students who develop a basic framework of finance expertise, but he notes with pride that some decide to pursue a degree in finance after being exposed to one of his courses. "I want all of my students, whatever fields of business they're in now or will eventually move into, to be better investors, have a better feel for how financial markets work," he says.
    Yook says, "Students consistently praise Joe for providing classes that are not only informative and interesting but also foster learning and development." Adds Pete Petersen, associate dean and director of the Graduate Division of Business and Management, "Quality programs begin in the classroom, and the excellent teaching of Joe Colantuoni is the foundation of our efforts. Indeed, he is an inspiration to us all."
— Andy Blumberg

Anna Hall, SPSBE PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Anna Hall, Public Safety Leadership

Anna "Ann" Hall's 29-year teaching career at Hopkins is singularly impressive, until one considers her 41 years of total government service, 25 of those with the National Security Agency. When Hall retired from the NSA in 1983, she had already been teaching at Hopkins for 17 years.
    The 82-year-old has taught through three of the school's incarnations — as the Evening School, the School of Continuing Studies and finally today's SPSBE. She started out teaching personal planning workshops for business students, then taught group and organization development courses.
    For 10 years, Hall has been teaching police executives, now housed in the Division of Public Safety Leadership. It is here that the skills she imparts find their most critical applications. Hall helps these veteran law enforcement officials gain new skills and perspectives in strategic planning and team building, in whatever public safety scenarios the class presents. In "how-to" workshops, Hall's students learn how to select teams, and what makes those teams a success, with success often defined by the personal safety and welfare of themselves and others.
    Hall makes good use of simulation exercises as they correspond to on-the-job situations police encounter. "People find out a lot about each other when working in teams under these conditions," she says.
    Hall, who received her doctorate at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1983 (and a master's in education from JHU in 1976), lived in Japan and Germany during her husband's military career. This exposed her to different cultures' approaches to strategic planning and team building. Still, the concept of basic team building and group organization tends to transcend time and distance, as any graduate of the Police Executive Leadership Program will attest.
    "Ann Hall's dedication to students goes beyond the classroom," says Sheldon Greenberg, director of Public Safety Leadership. "She makes a lasting impression on her students that they carry with them for the rest of their lives. Everyone should have an Ann Hall on the faculty."
— A.B.

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Edwin Lewis, SPSBE PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Edwin Lewis, Undergraduate Studies

Ed Lewis considers himself very much a Hopkins loyalist. Lewis, who has been teaching at SPSBE since 1998, has had opportunities to teach elsewhere along the way, offers he's politely declined. "I simply wasn't interested," the information technology specialist says. "I enjoy my interactions with my Hopkins students, and they keep me plenty busy."
    Lewis is a busy man for SPSBE, indeed. The security services engagement manager for Force 3, a network systems services and hardware supplier to both government and the private sector, has taught 10 different courses in his tenure, ranging from Medical Informatics for the Business of Medicine program to Web Site Security.
    Lewis' courses often consist of a mix of students with backgrounds not just in information technology but in finance and general business as well. Lewis sees this as further evidence of the increasing recognition of IT's influence in all fields of business. "I find that my students, regardless of their business backgrounds, really are interested in IT topics," he says. "I'm able to cultivate that and adapt courses to fit their specific interests while meeting the objectives of the course syllabus. It's very important to accomplish both of these objectives."
    Lewis, who holds a master's degree in information and telecommunication systems from SPSBE as well as a master's in finance from Loyola College, credits his wide range of business experiences in manufacturing, IT services and security contracts, experience in large corporate mergers and acquisitions and other areas with an overall perspective that can readily be shared. "Through my extensive work history with executive management, I'm able to convey 'lessons learned' that many students can identify with."
    For undergraduate students, Lewis teaches a variety of courses, including Principals of E-Commerce, Health Care Systems and Emerging Trends in Health Care. Whatever course he may be teaching, his dedication to his students and their professional development remains unwavering.
    "His care for his students [and] his willingness to share his materials and assist other faculty members makes Ed one of the best faculty in our program," says Toni Ungaretti, associate dean and director of SPSBE's Division of Undergraduate Studies.
— A.B.

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Sarah Duff, SPSBE PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Sarah Duff, Graduate Division of Education

Almost from the beginning of her career, Sally Duff's twin loves of teaching and science have been evident. Duff, who earned her master of science in general education with a biology concentration from SPSBE in 1985, was originally a Phi Beta Kappa liberal arts undergraduate with a concentration in chemistry. Her first position after college was as a lab assistant at the University of Pennsylvania, doing research on tuberculosis.
    Within a few years, a teaching position opened up in the elementary school system where Duff lived in suburban New Jersey. Duff brought her love of science, and the scientific method, into the classroom with her fourth-graders. "I loved teaching those students," she recalls. "I couldn't wait for Monday mornings."
    After two years in the classroom, Duff spent the next 16 years raising a family. Clearly, though, she missed the challenge and satisfaction of interacting with students, and in 1974 she took a position in the Baltimore City Public School System, first as a science teacher and then as a Gifted and Talented Education teacher.
    In 1986, Duff became a specialist in the Baltimore Schools' Office of Science/Health, where she worked in a myriad of capacities, including teacher supervision, staff development, grant administration, and writing and editing curriculum. Over the next 11 years, Duff worked on the development of a new electronically delivered curriculum, including science, for all BCPS middle grades, and a series of specialized reform initiatives designed to improve instruction and student performance. A landmark achievement was her establishment of the Lombard Learning Academy, a model school and demonstration center for teacher training.
    Duff has taught for SPSBE's Graduate Division of Education since 1987, both in the Department of Teacher Preparation and in Teacher Development and Leadership. She coordinates the division's Earth Space Science Program, which brings multiple fields of science alive for her students, who teach in Maryland's K-12 schools.
    "Sally Duff is one of our most dedicated and talented instructors," says Edward Pajak, associate dean and director of the Graduate Division of Education. "Her knowledge of science and her ability to communicate that knowledge to her students has made her a most valuable and sought-after instructor."
    "I am dedicated to improving science education," Duff says. "I want to make young people clear and knowledgeable thinkers, to be skeptics in that they question and probe. In this, I've been helped greatly by Hopkins' commitment to national standards and benchmarks, and also by its commitment to change. I wouldn't be teaching here if I didn't feel supported in that quest for change, for improvement."
— A.B.

 

Whiting School of Engineering

Lawrence Aronhime, Engineering PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Lawrence Aronhime, Center for Leadership Education

As an English major at Johns Hopkins more than a quarter-century ago, Lawrence Aronhime stood in awe of the teachers who guided his education.
    Today, it is Aronhime who's steering young minds and earning the admiration of his own students. A full-time lecturer in the Center for Leadership Education, Aronhime received this year's Excellence in Teaching Award for the School of Engineering.
    Aronhime, who has worked as an English teacher, an accountant and a software consultant, teaches students who are boosting their business skills in the W.P. Carey Program in Entrepreneurship and Management. This relatively new program has grown in popularity as more undergraduates seek to better prepare themselves for the competitive job market.
    Students who voted to honor Aronhime pointed to his upbeat, interesting presentations and his ability to create an intimate learning environment even in a class of 150 students. One former student wrote, "Even though I took the class last semester, I am still experiencing withdrawal symptoms."
    Another student added, "He was not only a professor to me. He was very much a friend and a mentor." Aronhime was not surprised by the mentor reference. He regularly hears from former students who want to bounce business ideas off him. But learning that he was nominated for the Whiting School's top teaching award did catch him off guard. "And when I won, it took me by surprise again," he says. "There's tough competition."
    Aronhime has vivid memories of attending Hopkins in the mid-1970s. "In one sense, it hasn't changed," he says. "The students here are still serious and focused on their work — and they're always complaining about it. What has changed is the fabulous diversity now in the makeup of the student body."
    After graduating in 1978, Aronhime worked as an English teacher in Ecuador, the United States and Israel. He eventually collected three more degrees, in accounting, business and education administration.
    "I have been in a classroom in one capacity or another for almost 30 years," he says. "I like the interaction with students. Where else can you get paid to spend your life talking about ideas and how the world works, whether it's about business or politics or anything else? I am one of the happiest people on this campus. I wake up every day grateful to be at this wonderful place."
— Phil Sneiderman

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