Fellowship doles out big bucks
Awards for teaching excellence presented to teachers in dramatic fashion
Seven teachers were awarded checks of appreciation from the W.T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. The surprises gifts were passed out while many of the teachers were doing what they do best.
Friday, August 17th, 2007
Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Provost Richard Lariviere surprised seven teachers during their classes Thursday, presenting each of the recipients of the W.T. Kemper Fellowships for Teaching Excellence with a $5,000 check.
Photo by Anna Faltermeier
Psychology professor Patricia Hawley accepts a check for $5000 from Mark Heider, president of Commerce Bank in Lawrence, as part of a Kemper award she received Thursday afternoon during a surprise visit to her afternoon class. The Provost, Robert Lariviere, far left, was among the vistors to Hawley's classroom. Five other University of Kansas professors received Kemper Awards.
The “surprise patrol” will continue awarding the Kemper Fellowships today and next week, with a total of 20 teachers and advisers amounting to $100,000 given away.
“It’s a great way to start the semester,” said Patricia Hawley, assistant psychology professor and one of Thursday’s recipients of a Kemper Fellowship. “It’s amazing to be among such great previous Kemper award winners.”
Thursday’s other honorees were David Bergeron, professor of English, Marsha Haufler, professor of history of art, Mark Mort, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, Lee Skinner, associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese Bryan Young, associate professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering and Yan Bing Zhang, assistant professor of communication studies,
“I had about a two minute warning that this was going to happen,” Young said when he received the award. “I was only going to be here for about five minutes, but then was told I better stick around.”
The winners are chosen by an election committee made up of peers and alumni. This is the twelfth year that the awards have been given out.
“When the upper classmen see us walk in, they usually know what’s going on, but most of the undergraduates don’t know what’s happening,” Mark Heider, said President of Commerce Bank, the trustee of the Kemper Fund.
Heider reminded students in Young’s class that students who had sat in their seats before are now the ones with jobs in cities such as Chicago.
“This represents those that have gone before you, and he helped them have the best education they can receive,” Heider said.
The award was first established with $500,000 from the William T. Kemper Foundation, which was created in 1989, and another $500,000 from KU Endowment.
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