University Times

Two faculty members — one in statistics and one in anthropology — have been named winners of the 2007 Tina and David Bellet Arts and Sciences Teaching Excellence Award.

Carl D. Bodenschatz, senior lecturer in the Department of Statistics, and Bryan K. Hanks, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, are this year’s winners.

The Bellet teaching awards were established in 1998 with a $200,000 donation from School of Arts and Sciences (A&S) alumnus David Bellet and his wife, Tina, to recognize outstanding and innovative undergraduate teaching in Arts and Sciences.

Each award recipient receives a cash prize of $3,000 and, for the first time, each honoree’s department will receive a one-time grant of $5,000.

The Bellet award recipients will be honored at a dinner April 11.

Carl Bodenschatz came to Pitt in 2000 from the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he had served in a number of positions including as professor and department head for operations.

At Pitt, he has taught several undergraduate statistics courses including Linear Regression, Applied Statistical Methods, Statistical Quality Control and Statistics and Probability for Business Management.

He directs the department’s undergraduate program and serves as an undergraduate adviser. Last year, he was recognized as one of the best instructors at Pitt with the 2006 Award of Excellence from the members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.

“I feel honored for this recognition, but it’s not the kind of thing that motivates me, really, or is sought,” Bodenschatz said. “I find teaching itself very rewarding. I love the energy in the classroom, and I enjoy the college environment, the community of scholars and learners. I feed off that.”

Bodenschatz said he strives to confront and overcome the stereotype of statistics as a dry subject by using real-world examples and demonstrating how statistics is useful in many fields and endeavors. “I’m not sure I always succeed in convincing my students,” he said. “I try to challenge them but also support them, by having a lot of office hours to be there for them and by being an adviser.”

Although Bodenschatz has taught some smaller classes, a typical class size is 80-88 students, which presents its own challenges for the instructor, he said. “I lecture most of the time, but sometimes I’ll pause and ask the students to discuss something among themselves and then have a class-wide discussion, so there is interaction as well.”

Also, stereotypically, statistics is a static subject, he allowed. “But there is ongoing research I try to keep up with, although the fundamentals of statistics are fairly constant,” he said. “Where there has been change in the field is that we’re using more technology, leaving some of the more tedious calculations to the computer.”

Prior to coming to Pitt, Bodenschatz served on active duty while teaching at the Air Force Academy, where he rose to tenured professor. “That’s where I learned to teach. And I found out I really enjoy it.”

Was there culture shock coming from a military academy to a public university?

“Both schools have very high-quality students. Of course, the Air Force Academy has a different mission, where, in addition to academic growth, we focused on training future military leaders, which included military and athletic instruction and personal character development,” Bodenschatz said.

“When I completed my active duty and I was ready to leave the Air Force, I came to Pitt because I was looking for a place where I could pursue teaching, which I enjoy very much, and administration, which was part of my background at the academy. Pitt has been a very good fit for me.”

Colleagues and students praised Bodenschatz in supporting materials submitted for the Bellet award.

Satish Iyengar, professor and chair of the Department of Statistics, recommended Bodenschatz for the Bellet award. “I know from his annual reports that he receives unsolicited appreciative comments from his students,” Iyengar said. “Carl has helped to improve our departmental procedures and also played a very important role in improving the introductory statistics course, including work on an interactive computer-based tutor, good use of CourseWeb and the periodic review of texts for these courses. Through his students, the impact of his work is felt throughout Arts and Sciences and beyond. He richly deserves the Bellet award.”

Kevin L. Montgomery, a junior majoring in general management, stated, “Dr. B. is what I call a ‘superprofessor,’ a teacher who not only teaches the course material with excellence, but also has a special effect on a person. Dr. B.’s special effect on me was how much he believes in his students and his passion for teaching, which includes strong commitment to his students. He believed in his students when they did not believe in themselves.”

Bryan Hanks, an assistant professor whose specialty is archaeology, came to Pitt in 2003 with his newly minted PhD degree, which he earned at the University of Cambridge, England. Now a widely published scholar in archaeology with broad experience in collaborative field work, Hanks has affiliations with Pitt’s Russian and East European Studies Center and the West European Studies Center, and with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

His current projects include field excavations on Iron Age sites in west Siberia, and radiometric dating and stable isotope research on the Bronze Age period in the southern Ural Mountain region of the Russian Federation.

The Idaho native’s first exposure to Pittsburgh came at a conference here in 2000. “I was pleasantly surprised; it’s a beautiful city. So I was thrilled when I was short-listed for this position at Pitt,” Hanks said. “There also has been a move in the anthropology department toward specializing in China and Russia, which fits in with my research.”

Hanks cited three key elements of successful teaching: communication, organization and adaptability.

“I feel that a commitment to clear communication with students is absolutely essential for providing effective undergraduate training,” Hanks said. “This means that as an instructor it is important to continually strive to refine courses based on student evaluations. Moreover, an instructor must work hard to be approachable both inside the classroom setting as well as outside of it.”

Good organization is another element Hanks said is crucial.

“Such organization starts with the syllabus and extends through to each and every lecture,” he said. “Just as we have clear expectations of students as instructors, we also should strive to continually re-evaluate the effectiveness our courses and methods of teaching.”

Hanks has taught both undergrad and grad courses in the department, including survey courses, seminars and writing courses.

Prior to coming to Pitt, his largest classes topped out at about 30, so it was a shock when his first introductory course here had more than 200 students. “Because that was so different, I put a lot of effort into that, making adjustments in my teaching, including introducing PowerPoint presentations,” Hanks said. “I have found that as an instructor it is important to be flexible in responding to the different strengths and weaknesses that develop within such settings. While it is certainly important to have a clear and coherent course structure from the beginning of the term, I always strive to communicate with my students in such a way that they feel I am doing all I can to provide a productive and meaningful educational experience for them.”

Students new to archaeology often arrive with certain misconceptions, Hanks said. “One thing that surprises students in my archaeology classes is how theoretical archaeology is. It touches on things like social theory and organization, and social philosophy, so students are exposed, automatically, to other disciplines.”

The other barrier to his discipline, he said, “is the ‘Indiana Jones/Hollywood’ factor. Students have to learn that this is science, not adventure.

“I knew I wanted to be a teacher by the time I got out of grad school,” he said.

“My appeal to students, I think, is that I have an interesting background, both in my studies and field work. I can bring to them the places and the sites I’ve been. I can say I lived in England for six years, that I’ve been to Mongolia and Russia. That interests students, especially those who have not had an opportunity to travel.”

Colleagues praised Hanks’s teaching prowess in supporting statements submitted to the Bellet committee.

Joseph S. Alter, professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology, stated, “I nominated Bryan Hanks not simply because he is a very good and popular teacher, but also — and perhaps primarily — because he is an innovative, creative and extremely dynamic and forward-looking teacher. He makes extensive and excellent use of a number of new technologies reflected in the University’s online Blackboard-based CourseWeb system and uses PowerPoint extensively in his large lecture classes. Beyond his remarkable use of technology as a teaching tool, Bryan is an outstanding teacher for the simple reason that he cares deeply about the quality of instruction.”

Fellow anthropology department faculty member Kathleen M. Sydoriak Allen stated, “Bryan Hanks is clearly a gifted teacher and a valued colleague. He quickly became a critical component of our undergraduate program in the Department of Anthropology and cares deeply about undergraduate teaching. He is able to present introductory-level materials in such a way that he draws in students through his enthusiasm for the subject and his use of creative visual material. He is so effective in his teaching, in fact, that students tend to follow Bryan from course to course. He moves students’ intellectual involvement beyond the classroom and willingly shares his ideas for teaching with his colleagues.”

—Peter Hart