1997 Recipients
Ronald R. Braeutigam
Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence
A graduate of the University of Tulsa (B.S.P.E. 1969) and Stanford University (M.Sc. 1971; Ph.D. 1976), Braeutigam joined the faculty of Northwestern in 1975, where he now serves as the Harvey Kapnick Professor of Business Institutions and Professor of Economics. He was nominated as someone who "has devoted an extraordinary amount of his energy and time to undergraduate education at Northwestern." His continuing efforts to elevate the level of the curriculum in economics have resulted in extraordinary CTEC evaluations, immensely popular courses, numerous teaching awards, and a redefinition in the method of teaching undergraduate microeconomic theory. Braeutigam has led the department in several important curricular revisions. As the first faculty member to require calculus as a prerequisite to Microeconomics, he spurred the department to require it for all sections of the course. He has served as a Faculty Associate for the Ayers Residential College of Commerce and Industry, and is the President-Elect of the European Association of Research in Industrial Economics. Braeutigam serves on the editorial boards of several leading journals in the field and is widely published. Price Level Regulation for Diversified Public Utilities is his most recent book.
Dwight Conquergood
Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence
A graduate of Indiana State University (B.A. 1972), the University of Utah (M.A. 1974), and Northwestern University (Ph.D. 1977), Conquergood joined the faculty of Northwestern in 1978, where he is now Associate Professor and Chair of Performance Studies. He was nominated as a person who "epitomizes the active and engaged scholar who is committed to teaching." He was described as "an accessible listener, a charismatic lecturer, an unobtrusive facilitator, and an impressive scholar." In his teaching his goal is to "promote a vigorous exchange between critical reflection and creative practice," and "help students appreciate the productive dialectical tension between ideas and action." Conquergood developed an immensely popular Performance Studies course, culminating in a week-long festival of one-person shows the students create from historical non-fiction material. He has produced a number of films documenting his ethnographic work, through which he has given students the opportunity to interact with members of inner-city street gangs and Southeast Asian refugees. He was named 1993 Professor of the Year for the State of Illinois by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, and has received grants from such organizations as the Ford Foundation and the Illinois Humanities Council.
Thomas William Heyck
Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence
A graduate of Rice University (B.A. 1960; M.A. 1962) and the University of Texas at Austin (Ph.D. 1969), Heyck joined the faculty of Northwestern in 1968, where he is currently Professor of History in the College of Arts and Sciences. Heyck was nominated for his "exceptional intelligence and dedication to the art of teaching" and for his work in "enriching, broadening, and intensifying" the quality of undergraduate education through the cultivation of communities among both students and faculty outside of the classroom. He pioneered and implemented the idea of the Junior Tutorial at Northwestern and was one of the founders of the residential college system, serving as a faculty fellow of the Humanities Residential College since its foundation, and Master from 1985 to 1989. As chair of Northwestern's 1988 Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience, he wrote a highly influential report popularly known as "The Heyck Report." He was named 1991 Professor of the Year for the State of Illinois by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. A scholar of British and Irish history, Heyck is author of several books including The Transformation of Intellectual Life in Victorian England, which was designated by Choice as one of the outstanding academic books of 1982.
Franziska Lys
Charles Deering McCormick University Distinguished Lecturer
A graduate of the University of Rochester (B.S. 1980; M.A. 1981) and Northwestern University (Ph.D. 1988), Lys joined the faculty of Northwestern in 1984. She is currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of German in the College of Arts and Sciences. Nominated for her "extraordinary quality of teaching resulting from her innovative approaches to the classroom," she is a leader in the field of electronic language instruction. As Coordinator of Intermediate German instruction, she has engineered a complete program of study which includes an interactive CD-ROM program (Drehort: Neubrandenburg) she and a colleague in the department developed, and an interactive grammar program (Dasher). Among her pedagogical innovations is her arranging for students to have e-mail partners in German-speaking countries. Lys was honored with an Outstanding Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Sciences in 1987, and was the 1996 recipient of the Lieutenant Governor's Award of the Illinois Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ICTFL) for outstanding achievement in the field of foreign language teaching and research.