Prof. Barbara Evans nominated for state awardPosted: February 16th, 2007SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. –Biology professor Barbara I. Evans Ph.D. has been nominated by Lake Superior State University for the Michigan Distinguished Professor of the Year Award through the Presidents Council of State Universities in Michigan.
Barbara Evans Ph.D.
The award invites nominations from all of Michigan's 15 public universities, each of which are encouraged to select the professor who has the most impact on undergraduate students through advising, support of undergraduate research and other experiential learning environments and contributions to the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Three professors will be chosen for the award by a committee made up of five provosts selected from Michigan universities. The committee will announce the award recipients in February and recognize them at an awards ceremony in April.
"Faculty members at Lake Superior State University take pride in the personal relationships they develop with students inside and outside the classroom," said Bruce Harger, LSSU Provost. "One aspect of this relationship is the opportunity afforded undergraduate students to engage in collaborative research with faculty members. In the biological sciences, students begin their involvement in research in the freshman year, develop research proposals in the junior year, and make presentations, sometimes at professional conferences, as seniors. Dr. Evans has been a driving force in this effort."
Evans came to LSSU in 1994 from Stanford University, where she was a visiting post-doctoral scholar for two years. She is a well-respected teacher at LSSU who is known internationally for her work on retinal development, using sturgeon as a model system. She works with new faculty members to help them develop their teaching and scholarly abilities and she is a productive scholar; publishing research and invited review articles in regional, national, and international publications.
"The great strength of her scholarship is her ability to involve students in her research," said Steven Merrill Ph.D., LSSU Dean of Nursing, in his nomination of Evans. "Dr. Evans takes every opportunity to bring students into her work as collaborators."
Evans has been a leader in the development of an inquiry-based curriculum in the LSSU Biology Department. This approach replaces the traditional teacher/textbook as experts and students as passive learners with an active investigation methodology. From the first year, each biology student begins and follows through a line of inquiry in a chosen area that culminates in a senior thesis. Through this process, students learn all aspects of the biology curriculum through active engagement with their own projects and through the mentoring of other students and faculty. Evans also uses her own scholarship to advance her teaching, incorporating new knowledge into her courses and laboratories.
"Dr. Evans has mentored more than 60 undergraduate senior thesis projects since she joined LSSU," Merrill said. "These projects demonstrate the students’ use of solid investigative methodology and the quality of these projects is apparent in that many have led to presentations at professional meetings and some to refereed journal publications – with students as authors."
Evans has helped those students along by helping to write grants that have brought in sophisticated equipment that usually is not available to undergraduate students at other universities. She was a co-author of grants that brought an ABI Prism 310 Genetic Analyzer, a microtome, and video microscopes to LSSU labs. Undergraduate students are able to use these instruments directly for their scholarly projects and other assignments, and when these students seek employment or graduate education, their direct experience with these types of instruments serves to give them an advantage over other candidates.
"The aspect of my job that I enjoy most is working with curious students," Evans said. "There is something special about the students at LSSU. Those who succeed in our program are honest, hard working and pose some interesting questions."
"The past several years have been very busy, but at the same time very rewarding," she added. "I have supervised many excellent students undertaking a wide variety of interesting projects."
Evans holds a bachelor's degree in biology from University of Ottawa. Her graduate work was undertaken at University of Kansas, where she earned her Ph.D. in biology (systematics and ecology). She has been involved in post-doctoral research at University of Kansas, University of Oregon and Stanford University. –LSSU-
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