Buckmaster And Prakash To Receive Eisenhower Awards

3-28-96
University Park -- The 1996 winners of a Milton S. Eisenhower Award for Distinguished Teaching are Elizabeth Buckmaster, assistant professor of English, and Madhu S. Prakash, associate professor of education.

The two faculty members will be honored during the Awards Faculty/Staff Awards ceremony at 2 p.m., Sunday, March 31, at the Nittany Lion Inn.

Buckmaster consistently receives the highest student ratings at the Delaware County Campus, teaching six courses annually in composition, writing and literature. She is the college representative for the letters, arts and sciences program, serves as chief advisor to students in the associate degree program, and assists students who pursue a baccalaureate degree.

"Regardless of the course or circumstance that brings her in contact with students, the outcome is that her students learn, and credit her for their new found confidence and self reliance as learners," according to her colleagues.

Says one of Buckmaster's former students, "I marvel at her ability to tell a story in the classroom, to reveal herself through her own experience and to allow an atmosphere of trust, a suspension of fear that gives her students the ability to be themselves and discover their own talents."

Indeed, when Buckmaster assigns a freshman composition paper, she also writes it.

"I think it's important that they see me work at writing, trying different approaches," Buckmaster says.

An instructor and professor at Penn State for 29 years, Buckmaster says one of her chief goals is to show students that good writing results from considerable effort.

"What I try to do is convince them that, like any relationship worth nurturing, learning to write is hard work, that one never succeeds completely, that the writer is always left yearning for the perfect word or phrase that exists, tantalizingly, just out of reach."

Prakash has taught a range of courses in philosophy of education since 1981. She has served on more than 40 committees or other groups that have addressed concerns of her profession, Penn State, the College of Education, and the State College community.

According to a peer, "Dr. Prakash is not just a good teacher, she is a model of what excellent teaching should be. She is lauded for bringing a different perspective to her students, in a way that promotes learning by healthy debate."

Prakash is considered an exemplary role model for female students because she bridges the gap between academic learning and learning about life. Female students make up the majority of students in the College of Education.

"This is the first time since I entered Penn State that a teacher has move me so deeply," writes a former student. "Dr. Prakash is a spiritual inspiration; her in-depth knowledge of complex philosophies and everyday people, compiled with her passion and compassion for all of life's true meanings, has influenced me to think of my life with meaning, purpose, and a caring sense of what influence my actions have on the rest of the world."

Prakash tries to create openness in the classroom to help students explore new concepts and ideas that reflect the diversity of culture, race, class, gender and the natural environment. Her teaching broadens philosophy and education to cover themes that include culture and agriculture, biological and cultural diversity, social and natural ecology, waste and recycling, food and nutrition, science and technology, and the ideals and virtues of community.

The Milton S. Eisenhower Award for Distinguished Teaching recognizes outstanding efforts among Penn State's tenured faculty, employed full-time for at least five years, with undergraduate teaching as a major portion of their duties. Milton S. Eisenhower was president of Penn State from 1950-56.

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