Eric W. Corty, associate professor of clinical psychology, at Erie, The Behrend College, and Gita Talmage, associate professor of mechanical engineering, have won the 2001 Teaching Fellow Award:  The Alumni/Student Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Corty is credited by his colleagues with teaching some of the most difficult material in a psychology curriculum, namely, Psychological Statistics and Tests and Measurements.   He says, “I mark my biggest success as a teacher in taking courses with content that students fear, and turning them into courses that engage and transform students.  My goal as a teacher is to help my students achieve the same level of understanding of the content and the same awareness of its implications that I have achieved after years and years of study and thought and teaching.  I want their ways of thinking to be transformed as mine have been and it is my job as their teacher to come up with as many ways as I can to make this awareness occur as expeditiously as possible.”

Dr. Talmage teaches undergraduate courses in thermodynamics and fluid mechanics and graduate level courses in fluid mechanics and heat transfer.  She also coordinates the Graduate Teaching Fellows Seminar Series, which provides senior doctoral candidates with instruction in good educational practice.   She believes in allowing students to become active participants in their education and encouraging them to form support groups among themselves.   In her classes, students are encouraged to express their thoughts, defend their ideas and become independent thinkers.  Colleagues have commented that they can easily identify her students– they are the ones that can state the equations, explain the terms that appear in those equations and whose homework is done in a systematic professional manner.

The Teaching Fellow Award was established in 1985 by the Alumni Association, the Undergraduate Student Government and the graduate Student Association to honor distinguished teaching and offer encouragement and incentive for excellent teaching.