Professor Edward Spitznagel
The Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Awards
for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics


The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is the world's largest organization devoted to collegiate mathematics education.  The nearly 30,000
members of the MAA participate in a variety of activities that foster mathematics education, professional development, student involvement, and  public policy.  MAA's national focus is complemented by its 29 regionalsections-together functioning as an extensive network for the mathematics community.


MATHEMATICIANS HONORED WITH DISTINGUISHED TEACHING AWARDS

(Washington, D.C., 1-7-2002). . . . . Dennis DeTurck, Paul J. Sally, Jr., and Edward Spitznagel, Jr. will be receiving the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics on January 7, 2002 at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego, California.  Established in 1991, the Haimo Awards are presented by the Mathematical Association of America to college or university teachers who are widely recognized as extraordinarily successful and whose teaching effectiveness has been shown to have had influence beyond their own institutions.

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Edward Spitznagel, Jr., Washington University, receives the prestigious award in recognition of excellence in teaching.  The citation notes . . .

Ed Spitznagel packs his lively lectures with real-world applications; students regularly oversubscribe his courses.  He applies statistics to research in many fields and uses his experience in developing new teaching materials.  He makes innovative use of the computer in his classroom.  With remarkable energy, Spitznagel collaborates with investigators in such diverse fields as medicine, pharmacology, marketing, engineering, and psychology.  His breadth of scholarship and his feeling for the practical find immediate application to his teaching.  In fact, he considers his research and teaching seamless.  In Spitznagel's own words,  "If I make a judgment call, for instance, that a development in
biostatistics will be significant in 10 or 20 years, I teach it.  There are no textbooks for an introductory course."  When Spitznagel reorganized and started teaching a beginning-level statistics course, the enrollment jumped from a yearly average of 15 to nearly 300.  He has been known to teach five sections of the course, a huge overload, so that it would be done right.  Ed Spitznagel consults all over Missouri and the U.S. on educational, statistical, and social issues and incorporates his wide knowledge into his teaching.