Programs: Distinguished Teaching Award
Each year the Alumni Association honors a faculty member whose dedication to teaching and undergraduate education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has put the campus in the academic spotlight. Recipients are honored at a ceremony during Reunion Weekend and receive a $500 cash award. This year's award will be presented to Alan Richards on Saturday, April 25, 2009, at 11:30 a.m. in the Humanities Lecture Hall.
2008-09 Distinguished Teaching Award winner
Alan Richards
Professor, Environmental Studies
Alan Richards has had a distinguished 32 year teaching career, first in the Economics Department and more recently in Environmental Studies. His class, Blood and Oil: Energy, the Middle East, and War, is legendary. His experience living in the Middle East and working at the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Agency for International Development informs his teaching, as does his interdisciplinary approach to scholarship. He is known for fast-paced, beautifully structured, powerfully delivered lectures sprinkled with moments of brilliant humor. "The readings he assigned were superb and still occupy important places on my shelves," said an alumnus who now teaches at Cornell University. A student in the Blood and Oil class said that "Some classes are difficult to sit through, but in his, it's 'tell me more.'"
Past Recipients
2007 Stephen Gliessman, Alfred E. Heller Professor of Agroecology (Environmental Studies)
2006 Gary Griggs, Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences; Director, UCSC Institute of Marine Sciences
2005 Don Rothman, Senior Lecturer (SOE), the Writing Program; Founding Director, Central California Writing Project
2004 M. Victoria González Pagani, Lecturer, Language Program (Spanish)
2003 Diane Gifford-Gonzalez, Professor, Anthropology
2002 Conn Hallinan, Lecturer, Writing Program (Journalism)
2001 Craig W. Haney, Professor and former department chair of Psychology
2000 Bettina Aptheker, Professor and Department Chair Women's Studies, Kresge College
1999 Barry Bowman, Professor and Department Chair Biology, Oakes College
1998 Peter Euben, Professor of Politics, Kresge College
1997 Marge Frantz, Lecturer Emerita, American Studies & Women's Sudies, Kresge College
1996 Carol Freeman, Senior Lecturer in Writing Program, Cowell College
1995 Michael Warren, Professor of English Literature, Cowell College
1994 Henry Hilgard, Professor of Biology, Kresge College
1993 Carlos Noreña, Professor of Philosophy, Stevenson College
1992 Louis Owens, Professor of Literature, Porter College
1991 Frank Andrews, Professor of Chemistry, College Eight
1990 William F. Shipley, Professor of Linguistics, Stevenson College
1989 Audrey Stanley, Professor of Threatre Arts, Cowell College
1988 Jonathan Beecher, Professor of History, Stevenson College
1987 Todd Newberry, Professor of Biology, Cowell College
1986 Eugene Switkes, Professor of Chemistry, Crown College
1985 John Dizikes, Professor of History, Cowell College
1984 Edward M. Landesman, Professor of Mathematics, Crown College
1983 Michael H. Cowan, Professor of Literature, College Eight
1982 John S. Pearse, Professor of Biology, College Eight
1981 Ching-Yi Dougherty, Senior Lecturer in Chinese, Cowell College
1980 Leo F. LaPorte, Professor of Earth Sciences, Cowell College
1979 Elliot Aronson, Professor of Psychology, Stevenson College
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