The Graduate Council announced the recipients of the University of Wyoming’s Graduate Awards this past week. Seven students and faculty will be presented with an award, including a stipend, recognizing their exceptional work and research at the University.
The four categories of recognition encompass the Distinguished Graduate Faculty Mentor Award, John P. Ellbogen Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Awards, Outstanding Dissertation Awards and Outstanding Master’s Thesis Awards. Respective departments, faculty and advisers nominated recipients and the Graduate Council selected the final winners from the group of nominees.
According to the Office of Academic Affairs, the John P. Ellbogen award recognizes a graduate teaching assistant for outstanding teaching. In the English department, Charles Fournier and Daniel Freije are both recipients. Curtis Nelson from Mathematics, Maurissa Radakovich from Psychology and Rachel Jones from Botany/Ecology all received awards as well.
Jones has been teaching in classrooms since 2008. She has recently been co-instructing Life 1020, co-lecturing General Ecology and assisting with Life 1003. Jones said working as a graduate teaching assistant has pushed her to pursue being an educator in the future.
“It sounds cliché, but I really found my calling in teaching because of my experiences as a GA,” she said. “It’s very rewarding to have students tell you they finally understand something because of the way you presented it to them.”
Jones said she genuinely has a love for teaching.
“I love designing lectures and activities to help students understand what are often considered difficult topics,” she said. “Winning this award makes me feel like my efforts have been going in the right direction.”
All the other awards were distributed within the Zoology and Physiology department. Jamie Crait received the Dissertation award, Matthew Jones was recognized for Outstanding Master’s Thesis and Harold Bergman was awarded Distinguished Graduate Faculty Mentor.
Bergman is a professor in the Zoology and Physiology department who has worked at UW for 39 years. Over the span of his career, he has mentored 45 graduate students, including 21 doctoral students. Even though Bergman is the one receiving the award, he said it is his students he is most pleased with.
“The thing I am proudest of, is out of all of these graduate students, as far as I’m aware, nobody is digging ditches – nobody is selling stuff that people don’t want door-to-door,” Bergman said. “They are all professionally employed as environmental scientists of one kind or another.”
Bergman will retire this coming fall, so it is very fitting for him to receive this award for his accomplishments as a mentor. He compared the students he has overlooked to his own children.
“It’s kind of like having 45 children – you get really close to them,” Bergman said. “Helping them mature is a huge amount of fun and provides a huge constructive positive reward.”
The criteria to be selected for a graduate award can be applied to four categories: the recipient has to have shown outstanding work in their department. To Bergman, the award represents the dedication and research both himself and his students have put into their department.
“It’s [the award] recognition that I’ve had a lot of graduate students and they’re all doing well. So, I must have done something right,” Bergman said.
Recipients will be formerly awarded during a luncheon this Thursday.
