Top profs garner Lindback awards

Ten University professors will be honored with the Lindback and Provost's awards for teaching excellence at a reception next Thursday in the Van Pelt Library's Rare Books Room. Five of the $3,000 awards are given to faculty in the health schools -- including the Dental, Veterinary, Medical and Nursing schools -- with the remaining awards going to faculty throughout the rest of the University. And eight tenured University professors are selected by the independent Lindback Foundation each year to receive the prestigious awards. From the non-health schools, this year's Lindback awards will go to Religious Studies Professor Edward Breuer, English Professor Michael Gamer, Law Professor Stephen Morse -- who is also a professor of Psychology and law in psychiatry in the Medical School --Eand Chemistry Professor Larry Sneddon. And Lindback winners from the health schools include Dermatology Professor Bernett Johnson, Surgery Professor Jon Morris, Psychiatry Professor Charles O'Brien and Nursing Professor Rosalyn Watts. This year's Provost's awards will be awarded to Nursing Lecturer Valerie Cotter and Mathematics Lecturer Ayelet Lindenstrauss. Nominations for the awards are solicited from across the University each December, and winners are chosen by a committee of former recipients and students. Provost Stanley Chodorow -- who confirms each of the committee's recommendations -- will present the awards at the 4:30 p.m. ceremony. Cotter --Ewho was named Associate Director of the Gerontological Nurse Practitioner Program in 1994 -- said the Provost's Award is special because students make the nominations. "I am so thrilled and honored to receive this award," she said. "This means so much because it is from my current and past students." Cotter, who has been at Penn since 1991, added that she "loves working with the students in the Nursing School." Breuer, who came to Penn in 1989, said he was "thrilled, touched and surprised" to win the Lindback Award and considers his selection to be "the greatest compliment." He will not return to the University in the fall, however, since the School of Arts and Science's personnel committee rejected his tenure bid. Sneddon said he was "very pleased" to win the award. "I have valued all the teaching experience I have gotten here and it's nice to be recognized for something you love to do," added the professor -- who came to Penn in 1974. "I'm pleased former students took time to write letters for me." Gamer, who is on leave from the University, said he is "still numb from the news." He first came to Penn in 1993 after receiving a teaching award from the University of Michigan, and has since been honored as one of the English Department's outstanding undergraduate teachers. "I had no idea I was even in the running until Provost Chodorow called me, and I can't think of a nicer welcome home," he said.