The Daily Clog » Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Teaching http://clog.dailycal.org A Cal blog brought to you by The Daily Californian Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:53:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 The Golden Apple Award Goes to Her Honor, Ananya Roy http://clog.dailycal.org/2008/04/13/the-golden-apple-award-goes-to-her-honor-ananya-roy/ http://clog.dailycal.org/2008/04/13/the-golden-apple-award-goes-to-her-honor-ananya-roy/#comments Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:02:24 +0000 Danica Li http://clog.dailycal.org/2008/04/13/the-golden-apple-award-goes-to-her-honor-ananya-roy/ goldendeliciousShe’s the rock star who teaches every class in a pencil skirt and vertiginous heels. Her lectures are so inspiring that she has to request her students withhold their applause at the end of each one. She’s the chair of the undergraduate urban-studies major and the associate dean of academic affairs in the International and Area Studies department. Her name is Ananya Roy, and she’s out to make you care, damnit.

A week ago, delivery interrupted a graduate seminar that Roy was teaching to heap much adulation and apples and purty flowers upon her unsuspecting person. The formal Golden Apple Award ceremony will take place in Dwinelle Hall at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 24, when she’ll deliver her “Ideal Last Lecture” and rack up a couple of grand for being just that awesome.

Roy teaches the wildly popular course, “Global Poverty: Challenges and Hopes in the New Millenium”, every fall semester. Reportedly, the class started out as an eight-week seminar with space for about a couple dozen students. Then it expanded. And expanded. And kept right on expanding. It was like the universe or Google or something.

From a couple dozen, space allotment jumped up to a hundred plus, and then to 600 last fall. Unable to keep up with student demand, Roy and her graduate students had to turn away scores of students last semester, and still the stairs in Dwinelle Hall were so clogged from people using the steps as seats that the place beggared navigation. The Clog was there, and we can tell you that, at 5 to 6:30 every Tuesday and Thursday, the auditorium was packed to full capacity. No one ditched — ever. Sound holy freaking impossible? We speak truth.

globalpov

Speaking of which, posters advertising the class have been going up around campus again. Check it out. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll be able to tell the IMF from the WTO at the end of it all.

Image Source: smackbox under Creative Commons
Fruit and flowers honor a teacher who ‘knows her stuff’ [Berkeley News]

]]> http://clog.dailycal.org/2008/04/13/the-golden-apple-award-goes-to-her-honor-ananya-roy/feed/ 0 Which Professor Is the Golden Apple of Our Eyes? http://clog.dailycal.org/2008/03/08/which-professor-is-the-golden-apple-of-our-eyes/ http://clog.dailycal.org/2008/03/08/which-professor-is-the-golden-apple-of-our-eyes/#comments Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:07:44 +0000 Patrici Flores http://clog.dailycal.org/2008/03/08/which-professor-is-the-golden-apple-of-our-eyes/ 800px-golden_russet_apple.jpgSometimes, professors need concrete proof of students’ appreciation–proof that doesn’t consist of sucking up during office hours in hopes of a glowing letter of recommendation. And so students created the “The Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Teaching,” named so because it historically incites intense jealousy in the community of professors who don’t win the honor.

In 2007, students nominated a total of 54 professors. Five were finalists, and department of history Professor Leon Litwack eventually claimed the honor during his last semester teaching.

The 2008 nomination process is now open and goes until Apr. 6. After choosing the winner, the ASUC, California Alumni Association and Berkeley Hillel go to the professor’s classroom with an undoubtedly welcome surprise of a $2500 award and a symbolic basket of apples.

Want to be a part of the post-nomination selection process? Turn in a resume to participate in choosing the “fairest” professor of them all!

Image Source: Abrahami under Creative Commons
Golden Apple Award [ASUC]
Students adore retiring historian [News Center]

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