Four Professors Win the Distinguished Teaching & Service Awards in the Social Sciences

By George Breslauer

November 5, 2002

As Dean of the Social Sciences, I am honored to celebrate some of the most dedicated faculty with awards for teaching and for service in the Social Sciences.

The winners of the 2001-2002 Distinguished Teaching Award in the Social Sciences are Dacher Keltner of Psychology, John McWhorter of Linguistics, and Kenneth Wachter of Demography. The winner of the 2001-2002 Distinguished Service Award in the Social Sciences is Larry Hyman of Linguistics. Each recipient receives an attractively framed certificate as well as a $3,000 check.

I continue the tradition established in 1994 by William Simmons, then Dean of the Social Sciences, who initiated these annual awards. He aimed to express to social science faculty the highest appreciation and admiration for their teaching and service accomplishments.

We all know that this is a world-class research university. Less often recognized is the outstanding teaching that goes on here. Least recognized is the dependency of the university on the administrative, entrepreneurial and related skills of faculty members whose service keeps this place going as smoothly as it does.

Annually, the campus gives a Distinguished Teaching Award to about six faculty members. Since UC Berkeley has about 1500 professors, the odds of receiving this all-campus award are extremely low. The Social Sciences Distinguished Teaching and Service Awards have been given to a total of 25 faculty members over the past eight years. Clearly, the odds of receiving these awards are also quite low, for the Division of Social Sciences has had more than 300 faculty members during the past decade. Yet the people who are doing the kind of teaching and service worthy of this highest award within the Division deserve to be celebrated.

The short descriptions that follow provide glimpses of the incredible dedication, enthusiasm, and hard work exhibited by Professors Keltner, McWhorter, Wachter and Hyman.

---

Dacher Keltner

Dacher Keltner is a professor in the Department of Psychology. He is a social psychologist and one of the leading lights in the field of positive psychology. And, as you will read, he is an extraordinarily dedicated teacher with uncommon perception and sensitivity.

Let me give you an introduction to Professor Keltner's teaching by outlining his teaching accomplishments in the last three years. He has taught the undergraduate lecture course on social psychology with over 200 students each year. He has also supervised an astonishing number of undergraduate students conducting independent research projects: over 100 such students in three years.

Dacher Keltner has been similarly involved in graduate education. In the past three years, he has led 9 graduate seminars and has served on 40 committees to help guide graduate students through every phase of their education.

Students accord him accolades when asked to evaluate his teaching. The chair of his department summarized the quality his teaching, as appreciated by the students: "He encourages his students to study the questions that mean most to them, not necessarily the questions that he seeks to answer. He helps the student develop the skills necessary to walk in his or her own path, not just to follow in the steps of the mentor." Indeed, this requires figuring out what students might be most receptive to: the path through which they would figure out what they would like to know. And then he inspires them to go down that path.

An undergraduate who has done research under Professor Keltner's supervision described him this way: "He encourages undergraduates to follow their passions, to search for novelty within the field of psychology, to retain a sense of awe and wonder towards the field of psychology in general." Legions of other students agree with this student. They flock to Dacher Keltner each semester, asking for his guidance, and being welcomed. The chair of his department has wondered, "What more can we ask for our students?"

John McWhorter

John McWhorter of the Department of Linguistics has become legendary on this campus for his capability as an undergraduate lecturer. He simply dazzles his students while imparting to them an ability to not only understand the material but also love the material and love being in class. He regularly teaches two of the larger Linguistics classes that are offered every semester, "Language and Linguistics" and "The American Languages." His overall averages in student evaluations are among the highest in the department, despite the challenging nature of these courses.

As one student wrote, "The man is a genius instructor. He should be given a raise, a car, and a better office than the one he has now in the basement of Dwinelle. Seriously," the student adds, "he has no limitations or weaknesses."

John McWhorter takes such care in teaching that he goes to lengths to memorize the name of every student in class. Even in large lecture courses with 100 to 150 students, he calls on each student by name.

The chair of the department added an acute observation: "I believe John's effectiveness in Linguistics 5 is one of the reasons for the increase in the number of Linguistics majors. When you can not only get students enthusiastic about a course, but get them to decide to major in that subject matter, you know you had a profound impact, probably on the course of their education, perhaps even their life's identity."

And it is amazing to note that in addition to his efforts and success in teaching, he has published four books in the last two years. In these works, as well as in his interviews published in the mass media, we get a glimpse of the great communicator that John McWhorter is.

Ken Wachter

The third winner of the Distinguished Teaching Award is Ken Wachter of the Demography Department.

The Berkeley Demography Department is famous for the level and the quality of its methodology training, due in no small part to the efforts of Ken Wachter. He is responsible for the core teaching in demographic methods each year at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He, too, enjoys extraordinarily high evaluations of his teaching from students, despite the difficulty of the material.

In the fall of 2000, in response to student demand, he took the innovative step of mounting a course in mathematical demography over the interactive video classroom link with UCLA. The plan is for a future video course through which Berkeley students will be able in return to take advantage of UCLA's strength in social demography. He threw himself into the project with characteristic fervor, traveling to UCLA to hold office hours and to teach from the UCLA video classroom.

The acting chair of Demography describes Professor Wachter's most distinguishing feature as a teacher: "He believes in the human intellect as manifested in each and every one of his students. He believes his students can master any material, can come to understand any method, and he does not give up until they succeed. His students eventually come to recognize and trust his faith in them and gradually accept the high expectations that go with it."

"He has an amazing and sometimes lyrical ability," the acting chair continues, "to use metaphor and analogy to convey insight and intuitive understanding. For example, when introducing students to the life table, a basic analytic tool in demography, he illustrates it by applying it to the fate of the children of Edward III, as recounted by Shakespeare."

Now he has turned his lectures and problem sets into a book on formal demography, entitled, Essential Demographic Methods, soon to be published by Harvard University Press.

Larry Hyman

This year's winner of the Distinguished Service Award is Larry Hyman of Linguistics.

Professor Hyman had been chair of the Department of Linguistics for eleven years. For eleven years, he led the department with spectacular success, utilizing to the fullest his extraordinary organizational, writing, and reasoning skills. He is legendary within the university for his dedication, energy, and enthusiasm. Leanne Hinton, who nominated Larry for this award, identified his enthusiasm as "an almost childlike glee" that accompanied his efforts to improve the department in every way.

He brought his skills to bear on memos to the dean and to other offices on campus. Whether he was asking for a salary increase for a faculty member or recommending staff for various awards, or whether he was in a battle for space, for funding to help hire new faculty, for improved safety in the department, for upgrading infrastructure, every memo was fully argued and fully documented.

He helped Linguistics faculty gain funding and campus resources for research, conferences and workshops. He would always let colleagues and staff members know when he had noticed their extra efforts or service. He always looked for ways to get campus recognition of faculty service and teaching and staff service.

He worked tirelessly for graduate and undergraduate students. He helped improve the financial situation of the graduate students. He organized visits for prospective graduate students and joined them for a party in their honor that was usually at his house. He involved undergraduates in departmental activities and attended every Cal Day that the department participated in. He turned the graduation ceremony into a beautifully organized event.

He also served the campus and the profession throughout his years as chair. He has been an active member of a wide variety of committees. He has organized and hosted numerous conferences and has brought together local, national, and international scholars, highlighting the work being done at Berkeley.

And throughout, he never neglected his research. In the last three years an edited book and 31 articles have been published or are in the hands of publishers, even as Larry was teaching an overload of courses and doing this spectacular job as chair.

Perhaps the most memorable indicators of Larry Hyman's enthusiasm for the Linguistics Department are his fabulous parties. Several times a year, he dons a high chef's hat and invites 60-100 people to a fine meal, always with excellent wine. He is a superb wine connoisseur and has volunteered as bartender, chef, and caterer for graduate student-sponsored meetings and other conferences.

Now there is someone else in the chair's office. The "Larry Hyman era" in the Department may be at an end. But its positive legacy will shape the Department for years to come.