MME is proud to announce that Professor and long-time faculty member, Gerry Recktenwald, has been selected to be in the inaugural class of the new Maseeh College Academy of Distinguished Teachers. When our Department Chair, Sung Yi, nominated Gerry for this prestigious award, the staff were confident Gerry would be selected as we’ve all witnessed his undeniable passion for learning and student success. Gerry was kind enough to sit down with me for a few minutes to discuss this award and share plans for his future in the Maseeh College Academy of Distinguished Teachers.
Award Name and Information:
The Maseeh College Academy of Distinguished Teachers is an award that selects three faculty who exemplify leadership and compassion both in and out of the classroom and who deeply value the importance of education. Members will serve a seven-year term.
Each member of the Academy will receive discretionary funds from philanthropic giving during their terms of service for pedagogical research or innovation, curriculum development, student engagement outside the classroom, and other endeavors focused on student success and experiences within our programs.
How would you describe your teaching pedagogy?
I try to bring as much active learning to the classroom as possible. That means reducing the amount of time I’m lecturing so that students can work with the material during class. I am often trying out new ideas, and I’ve learned that it is best to ease students into new ways of learning and participating in classes. The overarching idea is that teaching requires that I also learn. It’s a continually evolving process.
What are your plans now that you are a member of the MCECS Academy of Distinguished Teachers? What do you hope to accomplish with this award?
Right now (mid-May 2021) the Academy has yet to meet to discuss our role and shared goals. Therefore, the first thing I want to do is to learn what Annette and Ellie (the other inaugural members) think we can do. It seems to me that we can contribute by working with faculty to improve the craft of teaching (including my own), and we can work to create resources and opportunities for students to use to improve how they learn. There is a huge body of both theoretical and practical research to draw upon. To me, the biggest impact is to translate that research into practice. I strongly believe that anything we can do to improve the craft of teaching and student skills with learning will have lasting impact. Whatever the specific activities of the Academy, I hope we can help faculty feel more effective and fulfilled as teachers and help students learn better and deeper. The natural outcome, again, I hope, is to strengthen MCECS as a learning community.
Excerpts from student Letters of Recommendation:
As part of the nomination package, the MME Department collected letters of recommendation from former students of Dr. Recktenwald. We've shared a few of those messages below.
“The knowledge he brings, not only to solving engineering problems but also to improve readability and reachability of research, makes him an asset on whatever team he is a part of. Additionally, Gerry is caring in his interactions and never puts his own opinions and ideas ahead of anyone, no matter their level of education, which creates a community/inclusive feeling when he is a part of a project.” - Bianca Viggiano, MME PhD student
“His course was to be my first experience at a four-year university in over fifteen years, and I can still remember walking into his classroom at 10:00 AM on the Monday morning of fall term in 2019 - excited, if trepidatious - and how Gerry warmly welcomed each and every student into his class. Rather than immediately launch into the course material, he spent some time that morning discussing his teaching philosophy: how he felt that each of us was supposed to be there, how we all had the capacity to do well in his class, and that his door was always open should we have any questions or reservations.” - Warren Gunn, MME Alumni
“I have never been in another classroom that had more discussions than lectures. I have never had another teacher who asked more questions than the students. I remember countless moments sitting around in our project group: tinkering, brainstorming, soldering, or debugging code. Dr. Recktenwald would check-in, ask questions, give feedback, float ideas on how to proceed. It felt like he was a member of our team. Dr. Recktenwald was not just enthusiastic about the course material, but he was excited about our ideas, and our learning process. You could see his eyes shine when one of us had an “aha!” moment.” - Davis Zarfas, BSME Student