Four faculty members recognized for outstanding teaching

Four Princeton faculty members received President's Awards for Distinguished Teaching at Commencement ceremonies June 2. They are: Mitchell Duneier , professor of sociology; Eddie Glaude , the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies; Sharad Malik , the George Van Ness Lothrop Professor in Engineering and director of the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education; and Valerie Smith , the Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature and director of the Center for African American Studies. The awards were established in 1991 through gifts by Princeton alumni Lloyd Cotsen '50 and John Sherrerd '52 to recognize excellence in undergraduate and graduate teaching by Princeton faculty members. Each winner receives a cash prize of $5,000, and his or her department receives $3,000 for the purchase of new books. A committee of faculty, undergraduate and graduate students and academic administrators selected the winners from nominations by current students, faculty colleagues and alumni. Duneier, who came to Princeton in 2003, has tripled the enrollment in introductory sociology with what one student called his "extremely engaging" lecturing style. He also teaches an annual freshman seminar on "The Ghetto" and a graduate class on "The Logic of Ethnographic Method and Writing." This fall he will offer a new class, "Sociology From E-Street: Bruce Springsteen's America." Under his leadership as department representative, the number of concentrators in sociology has almost doubled over the past five years to an all-time high.