| April 9, 2006
Five Purdue educators receive 2006 Murphy AwardsWEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Five Purdue educators will receive 2006 Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Awards in memory of Charles B. Murphy today (Sunday, April 9) during the university's annual Honors Convocation in Elliott Hall of Music.
The university's highest undergraduate teaching honor, the Murphy Award is given in recognition of exemplary teaching in all phases of undergraduate instruction at the West Lafayette campus. A $10,000 monetary award accompanies the honor.
The winners' names will be included in the engraved Book of Great Teachers, a plaque in Purdue Memorial Union that honors the best teachers throughout Purdue's history. Murphy was a history professor at Purdue between 1927 and 1970.
The 2006 Murphy Award winners are:
• Steven Bell, professor of mathematics. Bell has been on the faculty since 1984. Last spring, he won Purdue's Ruth and Joel Spira Award, which recognizes professors who excel in teaching and inspiring students. Bell also works with faculty colleagues to increase undergraduates' participation in research and to integrate them into academic life at all levels of the department. One of his students said Bell "treated me more like a colleague than a student, which provided me with much-needed self-respect and self-esteem."
• Kirby Hayes, assistant professor of food science. Last year, Hayes was named a Purdue University Teaching Academy Fellow, and he was given an Award of Merit from the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture and received the Purdue College of Agriculture Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award. On the faculty since 2002, Hayes also won the Department of Food Sciences Outstanding Teacher Award in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Student ratings for his performance as a teacher are consistently 4.8 on a 5-point scale.
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