Teaching Academy to Honor Faculty for Teaching Skills

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The University of Arkansas Teaching Academy will honor Jim Turpin, a professor of chemical engineering, with the academy’s first Dr. John and Mrs. Lois Imhoff Award for Oustanding Teaching and Student Mentorship.

Seven professors from across the UA campus will also be inducted into the Teaching Academy, including the posthumous induction of Richard Atkinson, the late dean of the UA Law School, during a banquet at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15, at Ella’s Restaurant at Carnall Hall.

The Imhoff Award was created by a gift from the John and Lois Imhoff Trust to the UA Teaching Academy. The award recognizes faculty members at the University of Arkansas who have demonstrated consistent and committed excellence in teaching, instruction and mentoring, all qualities central to the mission of a student-centered institution.

The recipient must have been nominated by peers, including by a member of the Teaching Academy, and reviewed by an award committee of the academy. The nominee must instruct an introductory or entry-level course that introduces students to their discipline or acquaints students with a discipline. The nominee must demonstrate excellence in classroom teaching. The nominee must demonstrate excellence in student advising and mentoring, including formal academic advising, informal advising, student group or club advising, special project or research instruction and advising, and professional mentorship.

The award carries an honorarium of $1,000 provided by the Imhoff gift and a memento of service, in this case a mantle clock with a brass plate commemorating the occasion.

“Professor Turpin has not only been an outstanding teacher to traditional chemical engineering students,” said Curt Rom, president of the UA Teaching Academy, “but through his activities to enhance the teaching-learning experience on this campus and his service as a co-director of the Teaching and Faculty Support Center and his leadership in the Teaching Academy, he has been a teacher-mentor -- and cheerleader -- for many of his faculty colleagues.”

Turpin was an instructor briefly at the University of Arkansas in 1960, before pursing further education. He returned to the university in 1966 and attained the rank of University Professor in 1995. Among his many honors, he was given the Catalyst Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1991, a national award from the National Award Chemical Manufacturer’s Association. In 1988, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers gave him its national Outstanding Student Chapter Advisor Award. He was named the Arkansas Professor of the Year in 1996 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. In 2003, he received the College of Engineering Outstanding Service to Students Award and was the University of Arkansas Alumni Association Outstanding Teacher in 1982.

Turpin earned his bachelor and master’s degrees in chemical engineering at the University of Arkansas and a doctoral degree at the University of Oklahoma. He has been a research or consulting engineer for numerous companies, and has published several articles on chemical engineering. He is also a founding member of the Teaching Academy.

The Teaching Academy is a society committed to excellence in teaching at the University of Arkansas. The academy’s mission is to advocate and represent teaching interests, promote and stimulate an environment of teaching and learning excellence, and encourage recognition and reward for exceptional teaching.

The Teaching Academy consists of faculty members who have been recognized by their peers, colleges and the larger university for their excellence in teaching, including excellence in classroom teaching.

Other criteria for being selected to the Academy include the establishment of a special rapport with students, to instill a love for learning, and to encourage them to go beyond the expectations of the classroom and to explore their disciplines for themselves.

The Teaching Academy will induct the following six faculty members:

Richard Atkinson, the late dean of the UA Law School.
John W. Cole, instructor of marketing in the Walton College of Business.
Rick Couvillion, professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering.
Greg Herman, professor of architecture in the School of Architecture.
Amy Herzberg, professor of drama in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
Judith Ricker, professor of foreign languages in the Fulbright College.
Charles Robinson, professor of history in the Fulbright College.

Richard Atkinson — Atkinson taught law at the University of Arkansas since 1975 and became dean in 2003. He died unexpectedly Aug. 4 while attending the annual American Bar Association meeting in Chicago.

Atkinson received his Bachelor of Arts from Duke University in 1966, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. In 1971, he received a master's degree in divinity from Yale University, and received a Juris Doctor from Yale in 1974. He was admitted to practice in Georgia, became an associate with the law firm of King and Spalding in Atlanta and has been a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina, Emory University and Georgia State University.

Atkinson was one of two faculty members selected by the graduate class to participate in the Law School’s hooding ceremony at commencement virtually every year since its inception in the early 1990s.

One of Atkinson’s colleagues, Bob Laurence, the Robert A. Leflar distinguished professor of law, wrote a peer review of Atkinson not long before he became dean and described him: “He is one of the best teachers in the law school, and has won the Professor of the Year Award so regularly as to make the claim to being the best teacher. His service to the institution, as well, is extraordinary, and here I do not just mean his formal committee work. He is, himself, an exemplar of 'community life.’ And he is one of the faculty members most fondly remembered by alums. As the years go by and his tenure lengthens here, I suspect that for many of our graduates, he is the University of Arkansas School of Law.”

John W. Cole -- Cole was honored by the Walton College in 2005 with the Excellence in Teaching Award for his instruction in marketing strategy and then also selected for the Arkansas Alumni Association’s Distinguished Award in Teaching.

A Fayetteville native, Cole earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and a Master of Business Administration in marketing from the University of Arkansas. Cole has been teaching marketing classes at Arkansas since 1987 while maintaining his Fayetteville business, Walker Brothers Dry Goods, at the same time. Cole brings the real-world experience he faces as a business owner into the class room, giving students better examples of how marketing and merchandising can be successful.

His teaching areas include retail merchandising and buying, principles of marketing, retail marketing strategy, and selling and sales management.

Rick Couvillion — Couvillion has been a professor of mechanical engineering since 1981 and is now an associate professor in the department. He has received the College of Engineering’s Outstanding Teacher Award seven times, including four out of the last five years. In one of the years, he also received the college’s Outstanding Researcher Award, a rare feat. Couvillion has twice received the Outstanding Service to Students Award, most recently in 2003. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers also awarded him the Region X Robert W. Cox Award for educational activities and student affairs.

Couvillion has served as a program manager for the College of Engineering internship program for technology-based companies in Arkansas and also has worked on a special project supported by the Arkansas Academy of Mechanical Engineers to increase the retention rate among freshman. He has published numerous articles and books on engineering and was a co-author with Dave Hart of one of the early books about ground-coupled heat pumps.

Couvillion received his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Arkansas and his master’s degree and doctoral from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He remains involved with professional societies.

Greg Herman -- Herman joined the faculty at the University of Arkansas School of Architecture in 1991 and was recipient of the Mott Outstanding Teacher Award the 2000, 2003 and 2004. Involved in the development of the school’s Design/Build Studio, he has worked with students toward the design and construction of three houses for low-income occupants in association with the city of Fayetteville, local industry and the Bank of Fayetteville. One of the houses was featured in Architectural Record magazine.

His ongoing research includes inspections into the advent and development of American builders’ handbooks since the 17th century, with a particular focus on the influence of those guides upon the development of American architectures and technologies, the introduction of new materials, and the developments of new building techniques. His research has been presented at scholarly conferences including those sponsored by the Southeast Society of Architectural Historians, the Western Social Science Association and ACSA.

Herman received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Cincinnati and his Master of Architecture from Rice University, where he was awarded the William Dunlap Darden Medal. After working in various cities, he continued professional practice in Boston, while also teaching at the Boston Architectural Center. He has been an invited juror at several schools of architecture including those at Harvard, Rhode Island School of Design, and the University of New Mexico. He has also served as visiting faculty at Auburn University's School of Architecture. Active in a number of professional service organizations, he is a past director of the Southwest Region/Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.

Amy Herzberg -- Herzberg has been a member of the university faculty since 1989. Her areas of academic interest include acting, audition techniques, musical theatre and performance. She is working on a textbook for musical theatre titled “Acting Your Way Through Musical Theatre.” In March, she was named the winner of the Charles and Nadine Baum Faculty Teaching Award for 2005. In 2003, she was awarded the Kennedy Center's ACTF National Acting Teacher Fellowship, as well as regional awards in 2002 and 2003.  The National Fellowship included two week's study in the Teacher Development Program at the prestigious Actors Center in New York.

Her teaching credits include graduate acting principles, modern styles of acting, comedy improvisation and advanced acting. In 2004, she delivered motivational addresses, "Everything I Ever Really Needed to Know, I Learned in Acting 101," to the Nestle Corp. and "Funny Business: Comedy Improv Meets the Corporate World," to Tyson Foods Inc.

Herzberg's professional theatre experience includes working as a director, musical director and actor in La Jolla Playhouse, George Street Playhouse, the San Diego Repertory Theatre (resident acting company member), the Firehouse Theatre Company and the Steamboat Repertory Theatre. She has served as director for 24 UA productions, including "Picasso at the Lapin Agile;" director and musical director of "A Little Night Music;" and director of "Cabaret."

Judith Ricker — Ricker came to the University of Arkansas in 1980, after finishing her doctoral work in German and French at the University of Nebraska, and is currently professor of German in the department of foreign languages. She published two books and numerous articles and book reviews as well as translations and interviews on contemporary German, Austrian, and Swiss literature, foreign language pedagogy, and dialects. Ricker has also presented many papers at national and international meetings and has attended - and in some cases organized - pedagogical workshops.

She has been teaching a broad spectrum of undergraduate and graduate language and literature courses, as well as business German. Having previously served on and chaired the Honors Council, she continues to direct honors theses. She and her students have been awarded many undergraduate research grants. Her close collaboration with the German Cultural Centers in the U.S. has enabled the German department to be designated an official testing center and thus to offer four different comprehensive exams every April.

For several years, Ricker was heavily involved in professional associations, serving for three years each on the executive councils of the American Association of Teachers of German and the German Studies Association. Currently she is active in support of the Arkansas chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German by helping with the organization of a regional pedagogical workshop for German teachers in the fall of 2006.

She previously received several national and local awards, among them the Fulbright College Master Teacher Award, the Fulbright College Master Advisor Award, an Award for Exceptional Services from the Office of Post-Graduate Fellowships, the Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Achievements from the American Association of Teachers of German, a special award from the German Studies Association “In Appreciation of Outstanding Service as Book Review Editor,” as well as multiple Fulbright grants.

Charles Robinson — In February 1999, Robinson, then a professor at Houston Community College, gave a powerful Martin Luther King Jr. lecture at the University of Arkansas, the first opportunity for UA campus to hear him. His speech had a lasting influence on students and faculty. The UA history department expressed an interest in his work and soon thereafter Robinson arrived at the University of Arkansas after teaching for nine years at Houston Community College. Today, Robinson is director of the African American Studies Program, but his colleagues and students know him as a professor who “engages students’ minds and imaginations” and whose lectures are “passionate and intriguing.”

During his tenure at the University of Arkansas, he has been awarded both the Fulbright College Master Teacher Award and the Arkansas Alumni Distinguished Teacher Award. Robinson has been invited by numerous universities and professional organizations to speak on a variety of topics. In 2003, he published a book titled “Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South” and also has several articles and book reviews published in scholarly journals.

Students say that Charles Robinson is a natural teacher. He makes it look easy to engage them and draw them into the study of history. He takes facts and paints them with the personal, with the human situation that deftly illustrates his point. In a department that houses many award-winning teachers, he stands out as one of the best. Colleagues who have observed him teach say that students actually hang on every word. His students say that it is the energy, wit, life and humor he brings to the classroom that make him by far one of their favorite teachers. His commitment to excellence in undergraduate education is clear to his students and his colleagues.