Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hello, my name is Lanika Ruzhitskaya and I'm a postdoctoral fellow in the
Department of Physics and Astronomy. I am working with Angela Speck on establishing an
astronomy education program into department. She's my supervisor and I was
very excited to find out that she received the Kemper Award.
It's a pleasure to recognize
excellence in teaching
and that's been the
great honor of the William T. Kemper Foundation and Commerce Bank to join
in campus administration for the last twenty three years in recognizing
uh... excellence in teaching through the Kemper Award program.
It's also my pleasure on behalf of the Kemper Award Foundation to present you an
award of ten thousand dollars.
In class, when she stands in front of the class, everything she explains
it comes
from her heart.
It just, passion, how she teaches she is trying to reach to everybody.
Every student. She's very much excited about subject that she's teaching and she's
trying to talk personally to everybody. She tries to just take it out of her and
give it.
That's what I feel every time I'm in her class and I've been in many, many
classes,
graduate and undergraduate
Well she made no attempt today, it's absolutely honest because,
since 2007 I've worked with her very closely
and uh... every single day there is
something coming up and she always solves the problem, she always helps me.
She was my true adviser
for years.
I wouldn't be here if not for Angela on
many levels, for example
my degree is in School of Information, Science and Learning Technologies and
and the first time I met Angela, I was her student in Astronomy 1010,
which is for non-science majors.
I really love astronomy and I took that 1010 course
and Angela, she was fantastic.
I would meet with her and I would talk, what we can do, what we can develop new
technology, simulation and animation; an image, something to show,
to help
and she suggested to work on an activity. It was
uh... reasoning
science reasoning, helping students to develop their critical uh... skills.
It's about properties of the stars,
and
I was absolutely excited to do that. Her teaching, it's not just in the classroom.
It's always. It's like it is her life.
She is doing research in astronomy,
and she's also doing research in teaching, because every time she's thinking, how to
improve things, how to make them different, and not just in the classroom
but with little kids, with middle schoolers and with adults. It's all about
education, you know, it's about teaching people not just about astronomy
but about science.
Teaching people how to think, how to reason, how to make sense out of things.
That's what Angela is all about.