UC Davis will honor three of its faculty members - a writing composition instructor, a livestock management specialist and a Lake Tahoe restoration leader - May 30 for their outstanding teaching and research.
The winners of the Academic Federation Awards for Excellence in Teaching - lecturers Raquel Scherr Salgado and Dana Van Liew - and associate research professor John Reuter, recipient of the Award for Excellence in Research, will be recognized in a 5 p.m. reception in the Silo's Carbernet Room. Each will receive a $500 award for their contributions.
The teaching awards recognize demonstrated classroom excellence by the lecturers, including use of innovative teaching techniques and ability to stimulate independent thinking in students. Awardees are also honored for their commitment to student advising and contributions to the overall educational experience for UC Davis students, said Gary Sue Goodman, composition program director and chair of the Academic Federation's Public Affairs Committee.
The research prize honors the important role that Federation researchers play in enhancing UC Davis' research reputation.
Raquel Scherr Salgado
Raquel Scherr Salgado grew up in Berkeley in the 1950s and '60s, in the shadow of the university where she would eventually receive bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees.
But when it came time to enter UC Berkeley, Scherr - who came of age in a household in which Spanish was the primary language - felt completely overwhelmed. Academia was a foreign culture for the young Latina-Jewish woman.
The experience made her hungry for learning and anxious to validate her own background in her studies. Among others, she has created a course in writing about race and culture.
"Whenever I meet with students I always bring a memory of that (university) experience," said Scherr, who has taught at UC Davis since 1989. She encourages them to write what they, too, know.
"I found that students write best when they have the authority to write," she said.
Scherr's interest in helping minority students prompted leaders of the Chicana/Latina Research Center to nominate her for the teaching award.
"We have experienced first-hand her extraordinary dedication to teach students the tools to develop their academic and professional voices in ways that empower them to pursue their goals - and attain them," wrote center co-directors Ines Hernandez-Avila and Yvette Flores-Ortiz.
Vivian Alvarado, a senior studying Spanish and psychology, said Scherr helped her after she returned from a year in Spain. Alvarado, who grew up in Calexico speaking Spanish and English, had found that assignments for Scherr's advanced composition class didn't come easily.
"I had to work my butt off," said Alvarado of her class last quarter. "I would start speaking or writing in English and then just pause. I couldn't translate fast enough."
Numerous office-hour sessions with Scherr helped turn Alvarado around. She emerged with a composition that she'll submit to the student essay journal Prized Writing.
"I think my writing is better in both languages now," said Alvarado, who supported Scherr's nomination.
Scherr is happy to receive the Federation award, though it's something she's never aspired to. "Teaching is its own award," she said.
Scherr commutes to UC Davis from her home in Berkeley, where she enjoys reading and practicing yoga.
"I believe in the old idea of balancing mind and body."
Dana Van Liew
When a student enrolls in a course with Dana Van Liew, he or she gains more than classroom lessons.
In classes like Animal Science 21 and 22, students learn to evaluate livestock on a visual basis and through genetic estimates. But Van Liew, who has worked on campus since 1978, believes attaining this knowledge requires more than laboratory work. It requires sampling the agricultural world at work.
Recently he and his students observed livestock judging at the Sacramento County fair; earlier in the quarter the group visited a cattle feed lot.The tack is typical for other courses Van Liew teaches, such as an animal production laboratory in which students visit cattle, sheep and swine operations. Or the Livestock Judging Team that he coaches. In the program students travel to agriculture exhibitions to evaluate livestock and deliver extemporaneous speeches about their decisions.
Van Liew emphasizes that teachers before him had similar philosophies.
Still, he has impressed UC Davis students and faculty members mightily. Van Liew was recommended for the teaching award by animal science department chair Gary Anderson, who noted letters of support Van Liew had received from former students, many working in agriculture or teaching themselves. All recalled the academic and life lessons they learned under Van Liew.
"(The award) is certainly very gratifying," Van Liew said. "The thing that makes you feel good is that it's based primarily on student and alumni letters. It's overwhelming to read them and say, 'Wow, I made a difference.'"
Oftentimes animal science students have met Van Liew before coming to campus. Along with his teaching and research duties - he also manages the sheep program - Van Liew recruits agriculture students for the campus.
"He is the link from the high school and community college agriculture programs to UC Davis," wrote Marlies Boyd, a former student, now the agriculture instructor at Modesto Junior College.
Once students graduate, Van Liew stays in touch with them through his animal science fund-raising responsibilities.
Van Liew and his wife, Jan, who works in undergraduate admissions, live in Woodland. The couple has two children, Jill, a cosmetologist, and Dustin, who will study agribusiness at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo next year.
John Reuter
In an academic world where many scientists spend their careers focused on one specific subject, Associate Research Professor John Reuter uses a broader brush.
As the director of the Tahoe Interagency Monitoring Program, he takes a sweeping approach to studies of the viability of Lake Tahoe and its watershed.
"I look at things from a more ecosystem perspective," he said. "When I go down a path, I don't go down one path, I march down a lot."
The approach doesn't often get accolades such as primary authorship on journal articles, he said. That's why he's so pleased to receive the Academic Federation's Research Award.
As researchers look to restore Lake Tahoe's clarity, Reuter has used his knowledge to gather data to create a model of water quality for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He incorporates lake inputs from air, human activity, storms, aquatic organisms and other possible polluters.
"The goal is to find where materials come from, and if we reduce them by so much, what improvements will be made," he said.
Reuter's multidisciplinary work has impressed his UC Davis colleagues, who nominated him for the award.
"No one else on the research team has John's breadth," wrote Michael Barbour, a UC Davis plant ecologist. "Because of John's ecosystem focus and model, all of us are becoming more complete and effective ecologists. We are learning how best we can contribute to the model."
Along with the group's current modeling work, Reuter is also proud of the research he and his colleagues did on the water quality effects of MTBE, the gas additive believed to be a carcinogen. In 1998 the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency banned two-stroke watercraft, which spill high amounts of gas into the lake.
"This falls under the umbrella of applied research," he said. "The goal is to solve problems."
Reuter lives in Davis with his wife, Sharon, and daughter, Jenny, a student at Holmes Junior High.