2018 Teaching Excellence Award

Associate Professor of Physics

If you are an undergraduate physics student and want to collaborate on research, your first stop should be with Dr. Andrew Kunz. He has high expectations, but there’s also plenty of opportunity.

The recipient of the Robert and Mary Gettel Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence has published 10 peer-reviewed papers co-authored by undergraduate students. Coincidentally, 10 undergraduate students have co-authored papers with Kunz. He believes in active learning concepts and implements them at all levels of instruction.

“Students need to be responsible and held accountable for their own learning,” Kunz says. “They need to be given opportunity to succeed, and to fail, and that there needs to be layers of support in their quest to learn — from outright assistance to fading away — all with a relationship built on mutual respect of our various roles in the classroom.”

Two of Kunz’s undergraduate students have given oral presentations at major national meetings, and 13 have presented their work at area meetings, colloquia and poster sessions, and/or as posters at national meetings.

Kunz, an associate professor of physics, has received a STAR award from the Mutual Fund Education Alliance for positively affecting the lives of students, and has attended five conferences focused on teaching (one included a teachers workshop and one was devoted to the work of undergraduate women in physics).

“Andrew has a clear commitment to the furtherance of our undergraduate students,” says Dr. Brian Bennett, chair and professor of physics. “He doesn’t just talk the talk. He walks the walk.”