Paul Arntson
Alumnae of Northwestern Teaching Professor
Paul Arntson received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in Communication Arts and joined the Communication Studies Department in 1974. He is on the faculty of the Asset Based Community Development Institute at the Institute for Policy Research and a Fellow at the Center for Communication and Medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Arntson teaches leadership and decision-making courses at the undergraduate level, at the graduate level in the Masters of Manufacturing Management program, in the Managerial Communication Masters program, and in the Ph.D. program. Through a Ford Foundation Grant on Difficult Dialogues he developed and hosts a first year seminar on how to discuss issues of identity, diversity, and religion. His research includes understanding how pediatric cancer survivors and their parents communicate about their cancer experiences, investigating how to improve communication between primary care providers and deaf patients, evaluating community living options for adults with disabilities, and documenting how community based organizations contribute to the well-being of their neighborhoods.
Arntson was the founder and then director of Northwestern University’s Undergraduate Leadership Program for 12 years. He is also the founding coordinator of Northwestern University’s Public Interest Program that places graduating seniors in public interest fellowships each year. He teaches in the Certificate for Service Learning Program, the Center for Global Engagement and recently helped establish the Center for Civic Engagement.
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Nicola K. Beisel
Charles Deering McCormick Professor of
Teaching Excellence
Nicola K. Beisel is a graduate of Bowdoin
College (B.A., 1980) and University of Michigan (Ph. D.
, 1990). She joined the Northwestern University faculty
in 1990 where she is now Associate Professor of Sociology.
Beisel is praised by her students as an outstanding catalyst
to the development of their intellectual reasoning capacities
and for challenging them to examine arguments critically
in a manner that fosters independent insight. They say
she treats them as intellectual partners, encourages the
free flow ideas and builds intellectual community. They
comment on the high expectations she holds for them, inspiring
them to reach beyond accepting the ordinary, to delve
deeply into their own ideas, to buttress their arguments
with facts, research, and data and that her classes challenge
them to engage the meaning of gender and to confront subconscious
limits to their perceptions of the malleability of gender
roles. Beisel has been recognized for her exceptional
teaching with the Award for Distinguished Teaching from
the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Her scholarly
work on the politics of reproduction and abortion has
resulted in numerous articles and books including Imperiled
Innnocents: Anthony Comstock and Family Reproduction in
Victorian America. Her work has been recognized by a Guggenheim
Fellowship and a Fellowship at the National Humanities
Center.
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Richard Gaber
Charles Deering McCormick Professor of
Teaching Excellence
Richard Gaber is a graduate of the University
of Wisconsin-Madison (B.S. 1974, Ph. D. , 1982). He joined
the Northwestern faculty in 1986 where he is Professor
of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology. Gaber is
widely recognized as a gifted lecturer, tuning difficult
material to suit the needs of an exceedingly demanding
and diverse group of students. He has taught the introductory
course in biology to legions of students, adroitly managing
to present difficult and complex material that is new
to many students while maintaining the attention of those
with deeper backgrounds. Gaber was one of the first faculty
members to incorporate smart classroom and the FirstClass
network technology, establishing an especially high standard
of clarity in classroom presentations. In his advanced
genetics course, upper-level biology majors read primary
research literature, rather than pre-digested textbooks,
giving them a far more complete understanding of the demands
and accomplishments of biological research. He enthusiastically
encourages undergraduates to particpate in research themselves
and many pursue honors research projects under his supervision.
Gaber has received the Award for Teaching Excellence from
the Northwestern Alumni Association. His research has
resulted in dozens of publications and is funded by the
National Science Foundation and the National Institutes
of Health.
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Michael Kocour
Charles Deering McCormick University
Distinguished Lecturer
Michael Kocour is a graduate of the University
of Illinois (B.S. 1985) He joined the Northwestern faculty
in 1991 where he is now Lecturer in Jazz Studies. Kocour’s
students describe how he teaches by demonstration, facilitating
in them the development of a nuanced understanding of
the art’s modes of expression. They praise his passion
for jazz and his genuinely humble demeanor that create
a comfortable but rigorous learning environment, one that
dramatically develops their abilities, confidence, and
knowledge. Kocour’s curricular innovations, classes,
and lessons have brought Northwestern’s jazz program
national renown. His jazz appreciation courses for non-music
majors, especially the one on Thelonius Monk, bring his
love of jazz and his inspired teaching broad exposure.
Kocour’s influence extends beyond the classroom through
his commitment to his students, winning him their esteem
as an instructor and as a mentor and friend. Himself a
jazz musician of considerable talent, Kocour has performed
with jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody, the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the American Jazz Philharmonic
Orchestra. He has received Jazz Study grants from the
National Endowment for the Arts, was a semi-finalist at
the Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition, and
has performed in a multitude of local, national, and international
venues.
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Gary Saul Morson
Charles Deering McCormick Professor of
Teaching Excellence
Gary Saul Morson is graduate of Yale University
(B.A., 1969, Ph. D. 1974). He joined the Northwestern
faculty in 1986 where he is the Francis Hooper Professor
of the Arts and Humanities. Morson’s students cite
his profound impact on them with an influence that extends
well beyond the study of literary texts into the consideration
of broader questions such as how one might live a more
sensitive and compassionate life and become a better human
being. He is renowned as a flamboyant and dramatic lecturer,
performing texts with a passion that often elicits standing
ovations from his class. Students say they emerge from
his courses profoundly affected. Morson’s research
has led to over 50 publications and numerous books, including
Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time winner of the
1996 Rene Wellek prize of the American Comparative Literature
Association and Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics,
winner of the 1992 Best Scholarly Book of the Year award
from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and
East European Languages. He is the founder and general
editor of three book series, with over twenty volumes
among them. Among other recognitions, he has received
a National Center for the Humanities Fellowship and is
a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He currently serves as the Master of the Northwestern’s
Residential College of Cultural and Community Studies.
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Allen Taflove
Charles Deering McCormick Professor of
Teaching Excellence
Allen Taflove is a graduate of Northwestern University
(B.S. 1971, Ph. D. 1975). He joined the Northwestern faculty
in 1984 where he is now Professor of Electrical and Computer
Engineering. His students praise his ability for making
mathematically complex concepts relevant by discussing
their engineering applications. On a regular basis he
creatively reshapes the content of his courses to include
tools and techniques for solving real-world engineering
problems. Students and colleagues alike consistently praise
the enthusiasm with which he conveys the significance
of practical applications of engineering design, a matter
he carries over to his own career as the holder of eleven
U.S. patents. From its inception Taflove has been deeply
involved with the McCormick Design Competition, an annual
event during which teams of students design and then build
devices to real-world standards. His students remark on
his concern for their welfare and his virtually time-unlimited
open door for those who seek his help. Taflove has pioneered
basic theoretical approaches and engineering applications
of finite-difference time-domain computational electromagnetics.
He has authored three books, numerous book chapters, and
more than 70 papers. He is a fellow of the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers. His research has
been funded by National Science Foundation, the Office
of Naval Research, U.S. Army Breast Cancer Program, Cray
Research, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago,
among many others.
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