Top professors garner Lindback Awards

A committee of faculty and students awarded the highest teaching honor at Penn to eight University professors. Eight University professors have been selected by a committee of students and previous award winners to receive the prestigious Lindback Award for excellence in teaching. A ninth faculty member will be recognized with the Provost's Award. Provost Robert Barchi will hand out the awards at a ceremony April 22 at the Veranda. According to Terri Conn, executive assistant to the vice provost for University Life, the independent Lindback Foundation has annually honored standing faculty members since 1961. Four of the $3,000 Lindback Awards are allotted to professors in the health-related schools -- Nursing, Medical, Dental and Veterinary -- while the remaining four are given to faculty in the other eight graduate and undergraduate schools. In the health care fields, this year's winners are Veterinary Parasitology and Pathobiology Professor James Lok and three professors from the Medical School: Anesthesia Professor Robert Gaiser, Pulmonary and Critical Care Professor John Hansen-Flaschen and Pharmacology Professor David Manning. The winners from the eight other schools are Physics and Astronomy Professor Chung-Pei Ma, Law and History Professor Bruce Mann, Classical Studies Professor Brent Shaw and Folklore Professor Robert St. George. Barchi will give the Provost's Award -- which Conn said honors an instructor who is not on the standing faculty -- to History and Sociology of Science instructor Janet Tighe. According to Mann, the Lindback Award is valuable because students are partially responsible for choosing the winners. "The students are why I teach," said Mann, who has taught at Penn for the past 12 years. "It pleases me enormously to be recognized by the students." Mann said his nominations were from various students he has taught over the past decade and he was flattered that they "felt strongly enough" to recommend him. And Lok said that he appreciated the award and the student support he received. "I hope that the support from my students came because they think [my teaching] will have a lasting impact on their careers," he said, adding that all of this year's recipients are highly distinguished. "It feels like being in very good company," he said. The committee has been evaluating candidates for the awards since February, Conn said. She added that the committee reviewed student evaluations and letters of recommendation for the respective teachers to determine the winners.

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