Four grad students will be honored for their teaching excellence

Mark Bayfield, Vanya Dukic, Domingo Ledezma and Susanne Wiedemann will receive their awards at the Graduate School Commencement ceremony

Brown rewards outstanding teaching by graduate teaching assistants and teaching fellows with the presentation of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching. This year's presentation will be during the Graduate School Commencement ceremony on Monday, May 28, at 9:15 a.m. on Lincoln Field. A $2,500 prize is part of the award.

The finalists were nominated by their departments and reviewed by a selection committee, which reviewed letters of support from professors and comments from students the graduate students have taught. Students used comments like "phenomenal" and "awesome" to describe these teaching assistants.

The four winners all said they love what they do and intend to pursue careers in teaching at the college level, although they noted a tight job market.

"If he decides to pursue a career that involves teaching he will be a superb instructor," wrote Jorg Martin and Samuel Beale, professors in the Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry, where Bayfield is pursuing a doctorate degree.

Bayfield co-taught demanding courses in the past couple of years and his three professors said he did a wonderful job with all of them, including "Advanced Biochemistry," which has the reputation of being one of the toughest courses at Brown.

The course is tough, but the students here are very good, Bayfield said. All the coursework is primarily reading of experiments that make news. "There’s always been a lecture on prions, which is a causative agent for mad cow disease," Bayfield said. "That doesn’t make it any easier to learn. I try to key into that, to make it more interesting to learn."

The most important quality for a teaching assistant is enthusiasm, which helps students to learn better, Bayfield said. "If you’re not enthusiastic about the material, that is conveyed to the students."

"Science is one of these wonderful fields where curiosity and enthusiasm are rewarded," Bayfield said.

His own reseach is in trying to figure out the mechanisms of ribosomes, the molecular machines that synthesize protein in all life forms. Scientists are pursuing this fundamental mystery and have made a lot of strides this year, Bayfield said. If they do figure out how this molecular machine works, the understanding could lead to many things, including new antibiotics to replace the ones that are resistant to bacteria.

Bayfield is a native of Barre, Ontario. He has a bachelor’s degree with honors from McGill University. He is working on a teaching certificate from Brown’s Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning.

Dukic is described as "a person of unusual mathematical talent and dedication" by Professor Walter Freiberger. She has been an "outstanding" principal teaching assistant in several courses over the years, he said.

"She introduces students to statistical computing for these courses and leads them through the vicissitudes of the use of state-of-the-art software to carry out data analysis," wrote Constantine Gastonis, associate professor of medical science and applied mathematics.

Dukic explained that personal knowledge of her students helps her to teach better.

"A good TA should probably take some time to get to know what students' interests and backgrounds are. It really makes a big difference if a student interested in economics hears an example from finance, or when a pre-med student sees an application of statistical theory to medicine," she said from the University of Chicago, where she is a lecturer in the statistics department.

While at Brown, Dukic’s interest was in analyzing data from medical studies at the Center for Statistical Sciences. She also collaborated with a professor on statistical problems in medicine.

"In particular, Dr. Joseph Hogan and I looked at pregnancy success rates of patients undergoing in-vitro fertilization treatment. We extended an existing model for describing the underlying biological process of IVF. Using this model, we then examined a few biological factors that could be important in achieving successful pregnancy with IVF."

Dukic will receive her doctorate in applied math at Brown’s Commencement.

She also holds a master’s degree from the applied math department and bachelor’s degrees in actuarial math and finance from Bryant College. Dukic is a native of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Domingo Ledezma believes he needs to be part psychologist when he teaches the Spanish language.

"It’s painful and difficult when you are learning a language," said Ledezma. "Sometimes students are shy, or they don’t want to be ridiculous in class. In that case, you need to create a climate where they think all of them are important, all of them can make mistakes."

Ledezma encourages students to come to his office, where he lets them know he is a person they can trust, and they get over their language anxiety.

"Brown has excellent students. They are very motivated to study," he said. "The undergraduates are lovely people. They are interested in your topic and that is a stimulus for the professor. It helps me a lot."

Before coming to Brown, Ledezma taught Latin to high school students and Spanish composition at a journalism school in his native Venezuela.

At Brown, he earned a teaching certificate at the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning and organized two roundtables sponsored by the center: one on teaching literature in foreign language classes and another on bridging the gap between language and literature instruction.

"Domingo’s commitment to informed, top-level instruction was particularly evident to me in the summer of 1999 when he helped me revise our Advanced Spanish Conversation course. Because he had taught and supervised this very popular multi-section course in the past, he had many useful insights into ways of improving course materials and activities," wrote Beth Bauer, senior lecturer.

Victoria Smith, senior lecturer, calls him "without a doubt one of the strongest teachers we have had in the department."

Ledezma is a native of Magdaleno, Venezuela, near Caracas. He studied at the Universidad Centrale de Venezuela, Caracas. His research is in colonial literature and he plans to finish his doctorate in Hispanic studies next year.

Sometimes Susanne Wiedemann hears the question, "Why is a German teaching American civilization?"

"If the culture is interesting to anyone, it doesn’t matter where you are from," Wiedemann said. "When I first came here in ’89, as an au pair, I immediately fell in love with the States and the way of life. When I returned to Germany, I switched to examining the States from an academic perspective."

According to Associate Professors Robert Lee and Susan Smulyan, it’s precisely her bicultural background that benefits students of American civilization.

"Her ability to draw from another culture when talking about the United States, to compare and contrast European and American examples, and to open up another view of the American experience to Brown undergraduates makes her sections and courses truly unique," wrote Smulyan.

Wiedemann agrees with their assessments.

"I’m both an insider and outsider to both cultures. It’s funny because when I’m in this country I feel I’m so German , and when I’m in Germany I feel so American," Wiedemann said.

Wiedemann said the Presidential Teaching Award is special to her because "you invest so much of your person in these individuals."

"It’s an amazing experience. They all have different learning styles. You have to try to spend time with each of them outside the classroom," she said.

Wiedemann is a teaching consultant at Brown’s Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, which means she observes other people’s classes and evaluates them. She said she learns much from observing others.

Wiedeamann, a native of Eltville, holds a master’s degree in American studies from the Free University of Berlin and a master’s degree in museum studies from Brown. She expects to complete her doctorate in two years.