UNC News Services
Students at UNC recently honored three faculty members, one staff member and six teaching assistants for excellence in undergraduate teaching and service to students.
The 2007 Student Undergraduate Teaching and Staff Awards honored faculty members Marcie Fisher-Borne, an adjunct faculty member in social work; Hannah Gill, Ph.D., a lecturer in international studies; and Mark McCombs, a lecturer in mathematics.
The winning staff member was Amon Easterling Anderson, internship director for the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative.
The teaching assistants honored were Daniel Burke, a second-year doctoral student in physics from Houston; Diane Elliott Caton, a third-year doctoral student in Slavic languages and literatures from Earlysville, Va.; Kevin P. Eubanks, a third-year doctoral student in comparative literature from Trenton, N.C.; Rachelle Gold, a second-year doctoral student in English literature from San Jose, Calif.; Nicholas LeBlanc, a fourth-year doctoral student in Slavic linguistics from Port Barre, La.; and Bill Russell, a second-year doctoral student in comparative literature from Chapel Hill.
Each faculty member received $5,000; the staff member and each teaching assistant, $1,000.
The Student Undergraduate Teaching and Staff Awards are the only such honors directed and funded by students, who voted in 1989 to increase their fees to fund the program. Students submit nominations to a 15-to-20-member student committee.
Committee members review nominations and interview students to select winners.
The awards provide “a unique opportunity for students to recognize and reward our faculty and employees who are at the heart of a great undergraduate education,†said Jonathan McNeill of Durham, a recent graduate who chaired the selection committee with Christie Cunningham, a rising senior from Greensboro.
The committee chooses recipients for outstanding teaching that benefits individual students. Recipients also must demonstrate the value of undergraduate teaching by example; show concern for each student through interaction and approachability, inside and outside the classroom; create meaningful learning experiences; and maintain high expectations of students.
Fisher-Borne has master’s degrees in social work and public health from UNC. She is pursuing a doctoral degree in social work. Her interests include social determinants of health, community development and LGBT family issues. She has been an adjunct faculty member at UNC since 2004.
Gill received her doctoral degree in social anthropology from Oxford University in England. Her research interests concern Latin American migration to the U.S. She joined UNC’s Center for Global Initiatives in 2004 as a Rockefeller Postdoctoral Scholar and is writing a book on the Latino migration experience.
McCombs earned his master’s degree from UNC in mathematics. He is interested in developing World Wide Web-based instructional materials and writing textbooks for undergraduate math courses. A lecturer since 1989, McCombs also received a Student Undergraduate Teaching Award in 1994.