Music professor wins prestigious award for teaching

The honor of the Ira Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching goes to Music Professor Lawrence Berstein this year. "He's a wonderful teacher, distinguished scholar and much appreciated citizen of the University," School of Arts and Sciences Dean Rosemary Stevens said yesterday. "I am delighted that we are recognizing the superb teachers that we have." SAS annually offers the Abrams Award to a standing faculty member chosen by a faculty and student selection committee. The Abrams recipient receives $5,000 while the recipient's department is rewarded with an additional $5,000. The award winner humbly acknowledged the honor as "unexpected and very gratifying." "Teaching is its own reward," Bernstein said. "There are few aspects in our society which allow us to expose others to things which give us so much joy." He added that he is very grateful to his department for helping him to develop his teaching skills. "There are some master teachers in this department," he said. "I've had wonderful role models." Bernstein first taught at the University of Chicago before coming to teach at the University 23 years ago. He has also taught graduate students at Princeton, Columbia, Rutgers and New York universities as a visiting professor. A number of faculty and students bubbled with praise for this pepper-haired, mild-mannered professor. "There's no one that deserves this award more," Music Department Chairperson Eugene Narmour said. "He's spent an inordinate amount of time with both the graduates and undergraduates and he's had a terrific influence in training scholars in his field and in inspiring undergraduates to do their best work." College sophomore Elizabeth Popp said she was impressed by Bernstein's teaching when she took his freshman seminar class, "Introduction to the Symphony." "He wanted to get to know us outside of the classroom," she said. "He taught to all levels of the class and challenged everyone." "He made me want to go into music," she added. Popp said the Abrams Award helps keep the level of teaching up at the University. "By giving these awards, the University focuses more on teaching which is often neglected at research universities and it'll improve the quality of teaching in the long run," she said. And Narmour added that the newly created $5,000 award to the recipient's department will also help perpetuate good teaching. "I think the fact that there is a marginal stipend to the department is important because it rewards the department for hiring teachers of Dr. Bernstein's caliber," he said.

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