Case Wins Piper Award Nomination

By Tina Divara

The University of Houston-Clear Lake is proud to announce its 2009 Piper Award nominee, Kim Case, assistant professor of psychology and women’s studies.
The Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award foundation was established in 1958 to recognize outstanding teachers from colleges and universities for their dedication and teaching methods. This award is strictly for the state of Texas, and each university may choose only one teacher to represent their school in the state competition.
The foundation honors 15 professors from Texas colleges and universities. The award and a certificate designates the recipient as a “Piper Professor” with $5,000 cash honoraria each and gold commemorative pins.
Each fall, students nominate their teacher of choice.  The nomination committee then compares the number of students from the previous year with the number of students that voted, which reduces the candidates to 10 finalists.
To accept, the nominated finalists have to fill out and turn in an application packet that includes the application form, what awards and or grants they have received, description of current administration duties, a short personal biography, a curriculum resume and a statement of purpose.
A university committee that is comprised of four faculty members and four students, one from each school, vote between the nomination forms and narrow it down to one.
“Being chosen as the UHCL Piper Award recipient can only be described as the greatest honor I have ever received,” Case said. “Because the award begins with students personally taking time out of their busy lives to nominate professors, it means that students took the time to recognize me.”
Case in addition to teaching is the co-director of the teaching-learning enhancement center. This center is based on the faculty helping other faculty members in finding new and creative ways to enhance their teaching methods.
Case believes that this award will help her in the classroom and help motivate her to continue to find new and effective methods of teaching to insure that her students will be inspired and retain the knowledge throughout their lives.
Nomination forms encouraged students to make comments about the teacher they are nominating. One student said, “It is rare to find a teacher who is still passionate about student learning. Dr. Case is not only passionate about teaching, but she also finds new and innovative ways every semester to make the information personal to every student.”
Another student commented about Case’s passion and commitment to research and teaching her students, “She taught me not to give up when you hear the word ‘no.’ Dr. Case has taught me to reach and go for something that may be out of reach.”
A list of some of the classes that Case teaches includes psychology of women, introduction to women’s studies and graduate level psychology internship.
Finalist for this year’s award were Gary Boetticher, associate professor of Computer Science; Kirk Sides, adjunct instructor in communication; and Douglas Steel, adjunct instructor in Information Systems Administration and Management.