Guiding students to success |
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With every class, discussion, lab and project, Purdue's faculty and lecturers are helping students achieve their greatest potential. The teachers are innovative, inspiring, dedicated and caring — committed to providing meaningful education experiences that prepare students to take their own giant leaps.
Purdue has recognized eight of these educators with its top teaching awards: the Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award in Memory of Charles B. Murphy, the Exceptional Early Career Teaching Award and the Excellence in Instruction Award for Lecturers. Their stories are told below and in a new photo and video gallery. |
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Aeronautics and astronautics professor William Crossley admits he is humbled to be named a 2022 winner of a Murphy Award. So much so that the longtime Purdue instructor, now in his 27th year as a faculty member, proudly views the honor as a lifetime achievement award. |
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| The passion is pure. You can see it in Jennifer Dobbs-Oates' ear-to-ear grin and hear it in her spirited voice. Dobbs-Oates truly enjoys her dual positions as teacher and administrator. Most of all, however, she values the role she plays in preparing students to do meaningful work that improves people’s lives. |
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Engaging students is a priority in Elizabeth Karcher’s approach to scholarship, amplifying the impact she's able to make on her students, colleagues and educators in the K-12 system. “I believe it’s my goal to engage students and give them opportunities and experiences that can help them find their passions,” she says. |
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As a professor in the rapidly evolving field of computer science, Milind Kulkarni wants his students to train their minds to process issues they will confront many years from now. “I think this is especially important in computing, where the field changes so quickly, and the things that I learned even 10 years ago are not on the cutting edge now,” he says. |
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For Melinda Zook, home is where the heart is. And if you ask her, her home – and her heart – is in a classroom. “I knew early on that a classroom is where I truly belong,” Zook says. “Engaging with students – no matter the level of the course or the number of students – doesn’t get old. There’s something thrilling about students challenging me and me challenging them.” |
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Exceptional Early Career Teaching Award
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Danny Milisavljevic dreams of giving every Purdue undergraduate student the opportunity to look through a telescope before they graduate. “As a school that has this rich history of space exploration, we can’t launch everybody on rockets, but at the very least they can get an appreciation of space by looking through a telescope," he says. |
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Jason Ware wants students to be aware that he believes in them. The faith Ware has in his students is a faith that is reciprocated – and it’s not something Ware takes for granted. “I really value and prioritize personal connections," Ware says. "Students need to know someone believes in them and wants to see them succeed. And if I can be that person, I’ve succeeded as a teacher.” |
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Excellence in Instruction Award for Lecturers
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Beth Hess has been there, done that. That’s why she feels so strongly about the importance of connecting course concepts with real-world applications. Before joining the School of Mechanical Engineering in 2016, Hess spent eight-plus years with MED Institute Inc., a product development company in West Lafayette, rising from a clinical project manager to research engineer. |
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