two departments to share dahne prize for faculty excellence

In 2004, TCNJ Foundation received a bequest from Mildred M. Dahne ’32, which earmarked $217,000 endowed to annually recognize faculty excellence. Since spring 2005, an annual award of $8,000 has been given for department or program excellence.

A number of outstanding applications were received this year, but two departments set themselves apart with exceptional achievements and it was unanimously decided to recognize both the Department of Biology and the Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education with the award. The two departments will share the honor and the $8,000 prize equally.

The biology department application outlined the achievements of the department in the categories of department impact, academic excellence and teaching excellence. The 15 full-time faculty members in the biology department have certainly demonstrated their collective excellence in these areas. Among the highlights are:

-Serving as the major department for nearly 10 percent of the undergraduates on campus

-Commitment to providing an excellent scientific foundation to non-majors by offering over 500 seats a year in six different non-majors courses

-Integrating research experiences into the curriculum at all levels

-Placing a high priority on giving students an opportunity to engage in original research, with over half of the biology majors participating in scientific research for academic credit by the time they graduate

-Embracing the teacher-scholar model, with the majority of the faculty (11 of 14) actively engaged in scholarship in the field of biology

-Collectively, the faculty published 27 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the past five years, and one faculty member has published a nationally and internationally accepted textbook in the same time period

The application from elementary and early childhood education also very successfully highlighted their department’s excellence in the areas of department impact, innovation and creativity, and service to the profession. Among the extensive achievements of the 16 full-time faculty in elementary and early childhood education are:

-Receipt of a New Jersey Teacher Quality Enhancement Recruitment Grant that addresses the need to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers in high poverty, low achieving schools

-Formation of a partnership, the Joint Ewing Education Partnership (JEEP), with the Ewing Township School District to raise student achievement scores in the Ewing Public Schools while narrowing the gaps between students from different racial, ethnic and social class backgrounds

-Design and implementation of a project to examine the attitudes and beliefs of teachers and parents about working with families from diverse cultures

-International programs that have had a strong impact on teaching in State Department, Department of Defense and independent international schools, having prepared elementary and early childhood educators in Mallorca, Spain; Bangkok, Thailand; Johannesburg, South Africa; Kuwait City, Kuwait; and Caracas, Venezuela.

The Department of Biology plans to use the $4,000 prize to start an endowment to support student summer research.  It will be named in honor of Dr. Al Eble, who retired from the College in 2001. Plans for the Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education's winnings are in the works.

For a more thorough description of their accomplishments, complete versions of the winning applications are posted on the Faculty Senate Web page, http://www.tcnj.edu/~senate/index.html.