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1992 Recipients

Jerry Goldman

Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence

A graduate of Brooklyn College (B.A. 1966) and Johns Hopkins University (Ph.D. 1974), Jerry Goldman joined the faculty of Northwestern University in 1975, where he is now Associate Professor of Political Science. His special interests are in American government and politics; law and politics (including judicial processes, constitutional law, and judicial administration); and computer applications for instruction. He is the author of Ineffective Justice: Evaluating the Preappeal Conference (1980) and co-author of the nation's leading college textbook in American government, The Challenge of Democracy: Government in America.

Goldman is described as "an outstanding and charismatic teacher, probably the best in a generally high-ranked department." He has served as director of the American Culture Program in the College of Arts and Sciences, a program that provides intensive work for a specially selected group of upperclass students and offers unusual opportunities for close contact with faculty. Goldman has also been instrumental in securing endowed funds for his department to support undergraduate research; as a result of his efforts some $8,000 per year is available to Political Science students for such purposes. Goldman has also been an innovator in the area of instructional technology. A recent project is "Supreme Court Tutorial," software that introduces students to the Supreme Court justices and important Supreme Court decisions. The software has been built so that students are active learners about the Supreme Court.

Edwin C. Rossow

Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence

A graduate of Carleton College (B.A. 1959) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D. 1964), Edwin Rossow joined the Northwestern faculty in 1964 and now serves as Associate Professor of Civil Engineering. His research activities lie in the areas of computer methods of structural analysis, numerical methods, and the dynamic analysis of structures subjected to earthquake excitations.

Rossow has taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses, some of them on a one-time basis, and has consistently earned some of the highest teaching evaluations in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science from his students. He is widely admired by his students for his engagement in teaching, for the enthusiasm he brings to the classroom, and for focusing clearly in his classes on "real world" engineering problems. He is also recognized as a teacher who cares extraordinarily about the welfare of his students; in 1989 he became the initial recipient of the McCormick School's "Adviser of the Year" award. He has been an innovator in engineering education and has delivered papers at national meetings regarding the computer software he developed for use in the classroom and by students in a required Mechanics of Materials course. The software involves a sequence of calculational experiences involving spreadsheets which gives students a viable technical experience that simultaneously involves the acquisition of a computational skill and transmission of the excitement of the profession. In his capacity as director, he has been responsible for the recent growth in the University's National High School Institute (Cherub) Program in Engineering; and he has served on major University committees concerned with the improvement of teaching and undergraduate life.