Greer Wins Poole and Kent Teaching Award for Senior Faculty

Greer

Professor Sandra Greer (ChBE, Chemistry and Biochemistry) has been awarded the 2008 Poole and Kent Teaching Award for Senior Faculty. The announcement was made at this year's Commencement ceremony. The award is given to a senior faculty member for excellence in teaching.

Greer was recognized for her active role in mentoring undergraduates in research, and constantly involving them in her own research group. Students have regularly noted her drive and enthusiasm, and colleagues have praised her teaching of chemistry to engineers.

She was cited for her commitment to improving the campus climate for female students, whom for twenty years she has played a major role in attracting and retaining, beginning with her work for the President's Committee on Undergraduate Women's Education—work that has an influence on the university to this day.

Greer was also selected for her advocacy of ethics in research, engineering and science. She has designed and taught courses on the subject since 1994—among the first offered on campus—and is a frequent guest lecturer on the topic in others. Alumni of her undergraduate ethics courses frequently write to thank her, as they have been able to apply what they have learned in the field. Recently, she and two co-PIs won a NSF grant to support the expansion of a program that will develop a series of ethics courses and workshops for graduate students, postdoctoral associates and new faculty to provide training on research integrity and to teach them to mentor others in ethics issues.

Greer has received numerous awards and honors during the course of her career, including the university-wide Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award (1988-89), which recognizes senior faculty who, as men and women of outstanding scholarly accomplishment, combined with excellence in teaching, personify UMD's image of the professorate; and the American Chemical Society's Francis P. Garvin-John M. Olin Medal (2004). She is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1994) and the American Physical Society (1987).

During the award nomination process, one colleague wrote of her that he could only hope to emulate her dedication to teaching over the last thirty years.

Greer is the fifth ChBE faculty member to receive the Poole and Kent Award. Past winners include Professor Mikhail Anisimov (2007), Professor Nam Sun Wang (2001), Professor Richard Calabrese (1997), and Professor Emeritus Thomas Regan (1993).

Published May 23, 2008