This year, the Math Department at UW-La Crosse was given the department award. Every year, two professors and one academic department in the UW System are awarded with the Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award.
The awards are given by the UW System Office of Academic, Faculty and Global Programs. The Board of Regents bases the winner off of four things: excellence of performance, personal interaction, initiative and creativity and outstanding achievement.
There is a lot that goes into the nomination process. The nomination submission includes: a nomination letter, letters of support, condensed curriculum vitae, a reflective statement and evidence of success.
Each university in the UW System nominates a department as well as a professor, and the board of regents goes through the nomination documents and officially announces the recipients of the award near the end of the spring semester. The UW System is comprised of thirteen 4-year universities, which means the UW-L Math Department was competing against every department from twelve other universities.
The biggest part of this award is the recognition that goes along with it as well as a $5000 award that the department can use for professional development.
Department Chair Professor Rebecca Ledocq said, “Most of it is simply recognition, the validation from the outside that we really are doing a good job. We feel that we do, and we strive for that. “
UW-L is no stranger to accepting this award. In 2013, UW-L won the Regents’ Award for the Biology Department, and in 2012, an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education, Jennifer Kosiak, won the individual award.
In regards to winning the award this year, Ledocq stated, “It really is the people in the department that have made us win the award. It is for teaching, so obviously excellence in teaching is what we’re here for.”
Karoline Auby, the Academic Department Associate for Mathematics said, “We were able to grow the department and we were able to add those faculty. We’ve added really fantastic, incredible faculty, and that’s where are all the new exciting things are happening.”
In the department, there are 38 faculty and staff. There are roughly 160 math majors and the same number of math minors, but Ledocq stressed the fact that it’s not just math majors taking math courses. Nearly every student is required to take at least one math course, so this award recognizes the new teaching strategies that keep math from being an hour of lecture and then homework outside of class.
Ledocq said, “It’s not just those people that want to take math that we’re doing a good job with, but we’re going okay with the other students as well.”
Senior Tony Mottaz, a math and physics double major said, “The best part of being a math major is the people you get to work with. The professors are all phenomenal.”