Cherry Award 'Great Teaching' Finalists To Give Lectures, Classroom Presentations

Media contact: Lori Fogleman, director of media communications, (254) 710-6275

Over the next three Tuesdays in October, Baylor University will sharpen its focus on one of the university's core values - the significance of great teaching - as Baylor welcomes to campus the three celebrated scholar/teachers selected as finalists for the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching.

The Cherry Award is the only higher education teaching award in the United States that invites teachers from the English-speaking world to apply. In addition, it is the only national teaching award by a college or university - with the single largest monetary reward of $200,000 - given to an individual for exceptional teaching.

The three finalists for Baylor's Cherry Award for Great Teaching are:
? Dr. George E. Andrews, The Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University;
? Rudy Pozzatti, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at the University of Indiana at Bloomington;
? and Dr. Stephen D. Davis, Distinguished Professor of Biology at Pepperdine University.

The award winner, who will be announced in spring 2008, will receive the $200,000 award, plus $25,000 for his home department and will teach in residence at Baylor during fall 2008 or spring 2009. Even before that, the Cherry finalists received $15,000 each, while their home departments also received $10,000 to foster the development of teaching skills.

This month, Andrews, Davis and Pozzatti will be on the Baylor campus for three days for two classroom presentations and a public lecture.

Penn State's Andrews will present his lecture, "Teaching as an Art," from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 9, in room D.109 of the Baylor Sciences Building. Andrews is a renowned authority on the work of the late mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan and the theory of partitions combined, number theory, partitions and the calculus-reform movement. For more about his lecture, go to this link.

Indiana's Pozzatti will present his lecture, "My University Has New Vestments," from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 16, in room 149 of the Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center. A legendary printmaker, Pozzatti's works hang in some of the best-known art collections in the United States, including the Art Institute of Chicago, New York City's Museum of Modern Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. For more about his lecture, go to this link.

Pepperdine's Davis will present his lecture, "Undergraduate Research, Celebrating the Spice of Science," on Tuesday, Oct. 23, from 3:45 to 5 p.m. in room B.110 of the Baylor Sciences Building. Much of Davis's research centers on plant physiological ecology or the ability of plants to adapt to fire, freezing and drought.

To read biographical information about each of the Cherry Award finalists, go to the FULL STORY link here.

The Cherry Award was created by Robert Foster Cherry, who earned his A.B. from Baylor in 1929. He enrolled in the Baylor Law School in 1932 and passed the Texas State Bar Examination the following year. With a deep appreciation for how his life had been changed by significant teachers, he made an exceptional estate bequest to establish the Cherry Award program to recognize excellent teachers and bring them in contact with Baylor University students. The first Robert Foster Cherry Award was presented in 1991 and has since been awarded biennially.

The Cherry Award for Great Teaching is designed to honor great teachers, to stimulate discussion in the academy about the value of teaching, and to encourage departments and institutions to value their own great teachers. Each of the finalists has a proven record as extraordinary teachers with a positive, inspiring and long-lasting effect on students, along with a record of distinguished scholarship.

For more information, contact Linda McGregor at (254) 710-2923 or visit www.baylor.edu/cherry_awards.