The awards, given annually since 2007, highlight exceptional faculty accomplishments. The honorees (listed below) receive a $4,000 stipend for Excellence in Teaching awards, the Excellence in Service award, and the Excellence in Professional Achievement award.
Dr. Paul Beckman, pbeckman@sfsu.edu
Excellence in Teaching (Tenured Faculty)
This award recognizes excellence in teaching by a faculty member over the course of a distinguished career. This year’s awardee demonstrates exceptional contributions to technology adaptation, mentorship, and universal design for our students’ learning in and outside of the campus. Our award recipient this year is Dr. Paul Beckman.
Professor Beckman has a sustained and documented impact on student learning through introducing cutting-edge technology adaptation well before Course Management tools were adapted. Over the quarter century of career at SF State, he has demonstrated outstanding innovations and mentorship for junior faculty at SF State through a distinguished external grant and the internal Faculty Learning Community. Dr. Beckman’scommitment to Universal Design for Learning is stellar and has practical applications to learning outcomes for all students. He developed a pedagogical experiment to test student learning outcomes using different UDL concepts and applications, and his work were published, and then adapted in a video format to support other faculty to apply effective, creative, and innovative pedagogical techniques in their class. Professor Beckmanrelentless pursuit of excellence has led him to engage in various activities within and beyond SFSU that not only enhance his own abilities as a teacher but also empower his colleagues to become better instructors. His dedication to student success, innovative teaching methods, and continuous pursuit of excellence is exceptional. We are honored he won the Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Dr. Mohammad HajiAboli, mhaji@sfsu.edu
Excellence in Teaching (Lecturer Faculty)
This award recognizes excellence in teaching by a lecturer faculty member. Lecturer faculty are among the unsung heroes of the university, as they teach vitally important classes and in many cases represent the face of SF State to the students.
In his letter of nomination for the award, Dr. Kwok Siong Teh, Director of the School of Engineering, notes that this award
… is in consideration to the number of years outstanding of teaching and dedicated services Dr. Haji Abolihas provided the School of Engineering and its students. Dr. Haji Aboli is currently a 1.0 lecturer faculty and teaches 15 WTUs every semester... The physical and mental tolls it [takes] on the instructor [is] significant… Over the last 8.5 years, Dr. Haji Aboli has taught no fewer than 13 unique core courses in our computer engineering and electrical engineering programs and he is also the faculty coordinator for the supplemental instruction courses.…
Dr. Haji Aboli unequivocally deserves this award for the positive energy, single-minded dedication, and unreserved care that he continues to bring to bear on SFSU Engineering students and the School of Engineering.
Dr. Haji Aboli does a superb job educating Engineering students semester-in and semester-out as a full-time lecturer faculty.
Dr. Nancy Gerber, ngerber@sfsu.edu
Excellence in Service (Tenured Faculty)
This award recognizes excellence in service by a faculty member over the course of a distinguished career. This year’s awardee demonstrates significant and impactful service for the university and exemplifies a university member who goes above and beyond to serve its community members. Our award recipient this year is Dr. Nancy Gerber. Professor Gerber has a sustained and documented impact on student learning for over 20 years at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, in the College of Science & Engineering, at SF State and the CSU system. She has demonstrated innovations that have influenced the methods of student learning and advising at SF State. In particular, the area of undergraduate degree requirements and advising methods offer an example of her deep and meaningful engagement in service. As a result of her service, we saw a complete redesign of general education, the creation of SF State Studies requirements, the creation of the complementary studies requirements for BA degrees, and the consolidation of multiple policies to provide much needed clarity on requirements for minors, majors and certificates. We are also witnessing the implementation of more effective ways to advise and support our undergraduate students through UAC. Professor Gerber enriches our community greatly and we are honored she won the Award for Excellence in Service.
Dianthe (Dee) Spencer, dspencer@sfsu.edu
Excellence in Professional Achievement (Tenured Faculty)
It is with great pleasure that I/we present Professor Dianthe (Dee) Spencer of the School of Theatre & Dance, the award for Excellence in Professional Achievement and Growth.
Hired by Dean August Coppola as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Music, Dee has been a member of the faculty at San Francisco State University since 1990. Dee founded the Jazz Studies degree upon her arrival, and has taught classes in jazz improvisation, piano, harmony, women and jazz, and vocal jazz. A prolific musician and a gifted teacher, Dee has been an inspiration in the San Francisco music community for over three decades. Her intertwined scholarly and creative involvement with jazz, as well as an extraordinary level of accomplishment in both endeavors is perhaps best exemplified by her leadership and participation in Adventures in Music (AIM) for the past two decades, a program put on by the San Francisco Symphony in conjunction with the San Francisco Unified School District. The program's goal is to instill in the city's children a lifelong appreciation for music, whether or not they someday become performers themselves. The program reaches about 24,000 students annually and spreads to every part of the city from Bay View to Pacific Heights. Music has a multitude of cognitive benefits for children that AIM helps to instill early in their lives. Dee has published, in addition to her creative works, including more than six articles on jazz history, shedding light on many of the great women in jazz who have come before her. Dee also remains a popular musician performing on a regular basis at venues in San Francisco’s Castro District on a weekly basis. In summary, Dee’s musicianship and creative involvement in the music community have been nothing short of prolific since she joined SF State over 30 years ago.