Steinhardt and Brown Recognized By UT System for Teaching Excellence - August 25, 2011

College of Education faculty members Dr. Anthony Brown and Dr. Mary Steinhardt have been honored with the prestigious, UT System-wide 2011 Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award.

This year the Board of Regents of The University of Texas System recognized 72 faculty members from institutions within the system for outstanding teaching, including 34 faculty members from The University of Texas at Austin.

Steinhardt, a professor in the College of Education’s Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, is a Fellow in the Cissy McDaniel Parker Fellow Fund and Fellow in the Lee Hage Jamail Regents Chair in Education. She’s winner of the Robert Murff Excellence Award in recognition of outstanding support of career services, winner of the Bronze Award for Resource Development, a member of the university’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers, winner of the Texas Excellence Teaching Award, a recipient of the first annual Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award and was named Alpha Lambda Delta and Phi Eta Sigma Outstanding Professor.

Steinhardt’s research focus is resilience and in her most recent major project she examined how resilience-building can alleviate the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes in African Americans. She’s also looking at reducing burnout among public school teachers and enhancing the resilience of military soldiers and their families.

Brown is an assistant professor in the College of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the area of social studies education and is an affiliate faculty member in the area of cultural studies in education, the John Warfield Center of African and African American Studies and the Department of African and African Diasporic Studies. He’s the recipient of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Minority Fellowship for his research on the way African American male teachers conceptualize and respond to the socio-historical realities of African American male students, AERA Outstanding Dissertation Award and AERA Early Career Award.

His teaching and scholarship address how education stakeholders make sense of and respond to the education needs of African American male students as well as the existing historical knowledge about, and that’s available to, African American students in schools and non-school settings.

The educators from the 15 UT System institutions will be honored as the 2011 Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award winners during a ceremony on The University of Texas at Austin campus Wednesday, Aug. 24. They will share $1.8 million in awards.

The cash awards, which range from $15,000 to $30,000 – and believed to be among the nation’s highest for higher education faculty – are given to faculty members at UT System academic institutions who demonstrate extraordinary classroom performance and innovation at the undergraduate level. The event will mark the program’s third year.

“Today the Board of Regents considers it a true honor and privilege to recognize another class of great educators from across the University of Texas System with not only a ceremonial event but with much deserved financial rewards,” said Regents Chairman Gene Powell. “The Board is committed to continuing the process of seeking out, hiring and rewarding great teachers and the Board looks forward to holding these ceremonies for many years to come.”

“These faculty members embody the mission and spirit of The University of Texas at Austin. They inspire our students, open their eyes to new knowledge and opportunity, and train the leaders of tomorrow to think critically and deeply about the world around them. We are very proud of them,” said William Powers Jr., president of The University of Texas at Austin.

Award nominees must demonstrate a clear commitment to teaching and a sustained ability to deliver excellence to the undergraduate learning experience. Candidates’ teaching performance over three years was rigorously examined by campus and external judges.

Additionally, students, peer faculty and external reviewers considered a range of activities and criteria, including classroom expertise, quality of curriculum, innovative course development and student learning outcomes.

“It is our system’s responsibility to provide an exceptional education to our students, and we believe this award program not only furthers that goal, but helps promote a culture of excellence that produces better teaching, better learning and, ultimately, better-prepared graduates to enter our work force,” said UT System Chancellor Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D.

A list of names and the institutions at which they teach is available online.

—Kay Randall, University Communications, 512-232-3910