E-Council lauds great teachers

Ever wonder how many coffee mugs saying “World’s Greatest Teacher” fill the cupboards of your favorite third-grade teacher’s kitchen? How many apples, scrubbed to a shine by the corner of a student’s T-shirt, have been chomped by the math teacher who taught you long division?

They’ve probably lost count, and pretty soon some faculty members and teaching assistants may lose count of their E-Council Excellence in Teaching Awards.
At the April ceremony honoring work in the fall 2003 semester, four of the seven teachers were multiple-award holders.
In fact two of the recipients, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering Sanjeev Kulkarni and Professor of Electrical Engineering Ed Zschau ’61 are only allowed to receive one more award before they’ll reach Lifetime Achievement status. Professors Kulkarni and Zschau now have five teaching award certificates apiece to frame.

The award recipients are:
• Bob Dondero, lecturer of computer science, for COS217: Intro to Programming Systems;

• Sanjeev Kulkarni, associate professor of electrical engineering, for ELE201: Intro to Electrical Signals and Systems;

• Gregory van der Vink, visiting lecturer of geoscience, for GEO399: Environmental Decision Making;

• Ed Zschau, Professor of electrical engineering, for ELE491: High-Tech Entrepreneurship;

• Hafize Erkan, teaching assistant in operations research and financial engineering, for ORF309: Probability and Stochastic Systems;

• Bryan Patel, teaching assistant in chemical engineering, for CHE345: Thermodynamics;
• Anne Staples, teaching assistant in mechanical and aerospace engineering, for MAE 335: Fluid Dynamics.

Bob Dondero
Bob Dondero’s students swore that they never left a precept without complete understanding of a topic. They praised Mr. Dondero for his “superhuman effort and endless patience,” noting an occasion when he serenely spent four grueling hours with one student to find one bug in one program.

“He must have put 25 hours a day into our class!” one student said.

“He deserves a teaching award more than anyone I know,” said another.

Mr. Dondero described his “path to this very pleasant moment,” beginning when he was still working in industry.

“A few years ago I was working 37.5 hours a week, had lots of free time, a great salary, and I was miserable,” he said. “Now I drive 50 miles a day, work 60 to 70 hours a week, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

Sanjeev Kulkarni
Professor Kulkarni amazed each one of his 75 students by learning every one of their names within the first two weeks of class. They praised him for making the class interesting and the information accessible to everyone, electrical engineering and classics majors alike.

“He really wanted us to understand,” one student said.

“He is perhaps the best professor I’ve had at Princeton,” said another.

Professor Kulkarni said he found teaching nonengineers and EE majors with a focus on signaling equally rewarding.

“You students make it easy,” he said. “It’s just fun.”

Gregory Van der Vink
Gregory Van der Vink took a very practical approach to class. He assigned the students the task of stating a case for an environmental decision in the time frame of an elevator ride with a Congressman. For a lesson on beach erosion, he took the class to the Jersey shore, even bringing along a CD of the students’s favorite songs for the van ride.
“We were constantly in a position to question our assumptions,” one student said.
“It was probably the first time I had an emotional reaction to something I was listening to in class,” said another.
“More than any class I’ve had to date, Van der Vink’s class taught me to think,” said Ashley Prescott ’06, who presented Professor van der Vink’s award.
“Most of my career has been at this very noisy interface of science and public policy,” Professor van der Vink said. “Nothing is more motivating to me than coming up here to teach. It’s made me more effective in Washington.”

Ed Zschau
Many semesters of students have praised Ed Zschau ’61 for his exciting classes and inspirational lectures.

Miriam Okun, outgoing E-Council president and one of Professor Zschau’s students said, “He is the most dynamic and engaging professor I’ve ever had.”

“He deserves this award because I will remember what I learned in this class for the rest of my life,” another student said.

“I’m here because I hope to touch the lives of my students at least in some way,” Professor Zschau said. “But they always have to be prepared, engaged, and willing to take the risk.”

Hafize Erkan
Hafize Erkan’s students mused that she “didn’t seem to need sleep.” Perhaps that is how she earned two E-Council awards in as many semesters.

“I think Hafize worked harder on the midterm than some of the students,” said a member of her class.

Ms. Erkan thanked her students, whom she called her “best friends.”

“I want to make sure the students get the credit they deserve,” Ms. Erkan said. “They are eager to learn, willing to work hard, and they laugh at my poor jokes.”

She also thanked ORFE Department Chair Erhan Çinlar, whom she says has “always been [her] inspiration.”

Bryan Patel
Bryan Patel’s students ratted him out—to hold reviews for his class, he skipped out on studying for his general exams and even took a break from working on a proposal that was due in 24 hours. His devotion to his class was appreciated.
“He’s an excellent teacher,” said one student. “He knows how to figure out what we need. He’ll go back to the basics until we really get it.”

He even helped students with work for other classes.
“If all my TAs were like Bryan, I’d learn a lot more,” one student said.
“I guess I never thought I was good at explaining things, because my sister told me once, ‘Yes, you can talk. You can put words together—they just don’t make any sense,’” Mr. Patel said. “I guess I’ve come a long way.”

He thanked his students, Professors Dudley Saville and Morton Kostin, and fellow teaching assistant Phil Lenart.

Anne Staples
Anne Staples—Annie to her students—impressed her class by providing plenty of pizza at dinnertime review sessions, having “a knack for knowing when the class needed a further explanation,” and being “wicked smart.”

“Any time there was a question, even if it was outside the spectrum of the course, she would have an answer ready for the next precept,” one student said.

Ms. Staples assured her students that their relationship was reciprocal.

“Not only did you learn from me, I learned from you,” she said. “This was a most fulfilling experience and reaffirmed my decision to pursue a teaching career.”

The evening wrapped up with refreshments and a few words from Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman, who remarked, “What an inspirational way to spend a Wednesday afternoon.”