College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Graduate masters

Professors recognized for graduate instruction
Five faculty members in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have been named Master Teachers for 2005-06, a program which recognizes teachers who have a reputation for using unique methods to enhance student learning.

This year's award recognizes individuals who have been successful in a range of teaching activities in the area of graduate instruction.

In addition to being an outstanding classroom instructor, Douglas Bonett, professor of psychology and statistics and interim chair of the Department of Psychology, provides excellent mentoring and statistical consulting to a broad range of students. He currently serves on approximately 35 student committees where he is the primary statistical consultant, and he provides countless hours of consultation to many other students. Psychology students have come to rely on his availability, eagerness to assist, enthusiasm, and sound statistical advice in developing, implementing and reporting thesis and dissertation research. He has regularly taught the two primary statistics courses, Statistics 401 and 402, taken by students in many academic disciplines.

While at Iowa State, Carol Chapelle, professor of English, has taught a wide array of graduate courses in applied linguistics and TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language). She has taught 20 graduate courses and has been at the forefront of a curriculum developed in applied linguistics and TESL. She played a lead role in developing and gaining approval for the new Ph.D. program in applied linguistics and technology, which began in the 2005 fall semester. Chapelle has also been active in working with graduate students beyond the classroom.

Philip Dixon, professor of statistics, has effectively taught graduate level statistics courses to statistics majors, non-statistics majors and distance education students. Most of Dixon's teaching includes the courses Statistics 401 and Statistics 402. Students in these classes are graduate students from other departments who need knowledge of statistics in order to do their research. Dixon has developed a course for the College of Agriculture's off-campus Master of Agriculture program, a course he continues to teach. He also supervises the consulting work of several graduate students in the Department of Statistics' consulting activities with the Agriculture Experiment Station.

An important part of Mark Gordon's style with graduate students is his intense personal interest in them and energy dedicated to them. The Distinguished Professor of chemistry has served as a true mentor to his students, adjusting his advice for each student, giving additional help to those that need more direct guidance while giving more freedom to others. Gordon has consistently brought his graduate students to national meetings, getting exposure for them which helps the students achieve the important first steps in their independent careers. The number of external honors accumulated by his graduate students is inordinately high. An outstanding classroom teacher, Gordon teaches graduate courses for physical chemistry majors and non-majors as well.

Jonathan Wendel, professor and chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, is a firm believer that faculty members are teaching scholars and is active in training new university level teachers. For many years he taught the large plant taxonomy course and supervised and mentored a group of four to five graduate teaching assistants that were responsible for the laboratory sections. In the same vein, Wendel has been an outstanding mentor to graduate students in his research group. His students regularly publish in top quality journals. Wendel has also been instrumental in reorganizing the systematics and evolution courses in the Graduate Interdepartmental Genetics major.