Show appreciation with your nomination
Students have the opportunity to show appreciation to their favorite faculty member by nominating him or her to become UHCL’s next candidate for a prestigious statewide award.
The Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award, which began in 1958, annually recognizes professors for exceptional teaching in the state of Texas. Private and public universities throughout the state select a final nominee to represent them each year, and that person is then placed in the running to win the state award. Once all of the universities have chosen a nominee, ten of those professors are awarded $5,000 each.
An institution is allowed to come up with qualifications for the professor it will choose, but there are general criteria as well. The award is intended to recognize professors who have shown dedication to education, who have done research and publication and who have excellent scientific and intellectual achievement.
For an individual university, those who have the most nominations are moved to the top of the list, but there are other factors taken into consideration to determine whom the final person will be.
“Though the committee will take into consideration the number of nominations, they take more seriously how the professor is able to communicate her/his successes and philosophies in the areas of teaching, professional leadership, and service,” said David Rachita, interim dean of students.
Graduate Biology Major Jonathan Gulde said that he plans to nominate one of his favorite professors. Gulde said that the reasons he wants to nominate this professor is because she shows up to class, knows how to communicate the material and also takes the time to know each student.
“I think it’s a great thing,” Gulde said. “It gives recognition to the teachers who work very hard.”
Rachita points out that sometimes it is difficult to know how to show appreciation, but nominating professors for this award is a great way to express that.
“So often professors do not hear what they are doing right,” Rachita said. “Students don’t always think about saying ‘thank you.’ Often teachers aren’t personally told they made a difference.”
Last year’s Piper Award nominee for UHCL, Assistant Professor of Sociology Stephen Cherry, said that being nominated was a tremendous honor, especially knowing it was the students who nominated him.
“We do not always know if we are making the impact we hope to make as a professor; so it felt great to learn that some of my students appreciate all the hard work that goes into building a great class or mentoring them,” Cherry said.
The Piper nomination form can be found on the school’s website, http://prtl.uhcl.edu/portal/page/portal/SSO/AWARDS/PIPER_AWARD, and the deadline for the submission is Tuesday, Sept. 30 at noon.
