Two from IU are Carnegie headliners

RUGS’ Walker to direct national Ph.D. study; ‘Doc‘ Nelson named ‘Professor of Year’

By Jayne Spencer

Photo by Paul Martens
Craig Nelson is one of four new “Professors of the Year” nationwide recently honored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in evolution and ecology, several interdisciplinary courses, including part of a three course liberal-arts cluster called “Knowing, Knowledge and Their Limits: Literature, Psychology and Biology” and a graduate course on “Alternative Approaches to Teaching College Biology.” He also has been a consulting editor for College Teaching and conducted NSF-funded Evolution and the Nature of Science Institutes for high school biology teachers to aid teachers in fostering higher-level critical thinking skills in their students.

In other news from the foundation, Craig Nelson, IU Bloomington professor of biology and of public and environmental affairs, has been named one of four “U.S. Professors of the Year” from a field of 500 outstanding faculty members nationwide. Nelson won in the category of research and doctoral universities.

In announcing the Walker appointment, Lee Shulman, president of the Carnegie Foundation, said that the United States continues to be the international leader in the number of doctoral programs and number of doctoral degrees granted. The initiative to enhance doctoral education, he said, will be critical to the continued improvement of all American education, from the elementary school to the graduate school.

“If educators hope to change the character of undergraduate education, the Ph.D. is critical; doctoral programs prepare and socialize the next generation of undergraduate teachers,” he said. The project goals are to support and study new experiments in doctoral education with leading graduate programs, to document and analyze the character of those initiatives, and to offer specific recommendations to educators and policy makers about the continued vigor of doctoral education.

Walker will begin a five-year appointment as a Carnegie Foundation senior scholar next month and will serve in-residence part time at the foundation’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters while retaining his duties at IU.

Walker said that now is the ideal time to do the study, precisely because the doctorate is not in disarray. He said there were tremendous new opportunities and responsibilities for the doctorate to address changes in education and society.

“This is an exciting new initiative to maintain and enrich the quality of doctoral education, and IU is extremely pleased to collaborate with the Carnegie Foundation through Dr. Walker’s role as head of the study,” said IU President Myles Brand.

Nelson, who also is an adjunct faculty member in the IU Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior, was honored at a ceremony Nov. 14 in Washington, D.C., along with Robert Garvey, professor of physics at the College of the Holy Cross, outstanding baccalaureate college professor; Brad Baker, professor of theater at Collin County Community College District, Plano, Texas, outstanding community college professor; and Kathleen Regan, assistant professor of Spanish, University of Portland (Ore.), outstanding master’s university and college professor.

The honor included a $5,000 cash award to each recipient.

Besides imparting great knowledge, Nelson’s students, who affectionately call him “Doc,” remark on the significant impact he has had on their personal lives.

“Put plainly, Doc Nelson has provided me with the greatest gift that any teacher could give a student: hope,” said IU senior Ian Parker-Regna. “He has provided me with the tools to seek out solutions rather than just identify the problems…Doc shows his curiosity, exposes his passion…and wears his love for life on his arm like a badge of optimism for all to see. I am grateful for the opportunity to have learned from him.”