Largest national teaching prize in the US.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: University of Missouri professor Dr. Meera Chandrasekhar was awarded the $250,000 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, the largest national teaching prize given out by a college or university in the US.
Given out by Baylor University, the Cherry Award seeks to recognize academic professionals who showcase exceptional skill and enthusiasm for teaching. The quarter million dollar prize money is the largest monetary reward for teaching given by any university or college in the US, with $25,000 doled out for the recipient’s home department.
“I am humbled to join the illustrious group of teacher scholars who received the award before me,” Chandrasekhar said. “The appreciation of excellence in teaching and associated learning has been growing over the past couple of decades. I am excited about my upcoming semester at Baylor, and look forward to collaborating with the faculty and students at the University in the teaching and learning enterprise.”
Chandrasekhar is a Curators’ Teaching Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Missouri, a public research university in the city of Columbia. Often referred to colloquially as “Mizzou” and known for its rabid football culture, the school enrolls around 35,000 students throughout all its individual colleges and departments, undergraduate and post-graduate.
“Baylor University is very pleased to honor Dr. Chandrasekhar,” said Elizabeth Davis, Ph.D., executive vice president and provost at Baylor, in a press release announcing Chandrasekhar’s victory. “[She] is an internationally known teacher/scholar who combines an impressive academic record with a stellar reputation for the extraordinary impact she has had on undergraduate and graduate students.”
Chandrasekhar was named as one of the three finalists for the Award in November, along with New York University Art History Prof. Joan Breton Connelly and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Economics Prof. Michael K. Salemi. All three gave a series of lectures at their base universities on a topic of their choosing; Chandrasekhar’s lecture series was entitled “Blind to Polarization – What Humans Cannot See.”
All three candidates also visited Baylor University for three days, taught two classes at that campus, and gave another public lecture there. It was these criteria, along with interviews with faculty and students at Baylor University, which were used by the Award’s selection committee in choosing who would ultimately receive the award.
Chandrasekhar earned her bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from Mysore’s M.G.M. College in 1968. She then went on to receive her master’s degree in physics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras two years later, and another master’s degree from Brown University in 1973. She then earned her Ph.D. in physics in 1976 from Brown University as well, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Max-Planck Institute in Germany.
She joined the University of Missouri faculty in 1978, over 35 years ago. During her tenure there, she has accumulated a number of highly coveted teaching awards, including the 1992 Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT, the National Science Foundation’s 1999 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, and the University of Missouri’s 2006 President’s Award for Outstanding Teaching.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com