Campus-Favorite Prof Gets National Honor
Alex Filippenko, known for his introductory course Astro C10, has been named Professor of the Year. Sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the award goes to those “outstanding professors for their dedication to teaching, commitment to students and innovative instructional methods.” Filippenko beat out other finalists from research universities to win the national honor. In the past six years, he has won Cal’s campus-wide Best Professor award four times. The UC Berkeley NewsCenter reports that
Filippenko said he has a simple philosophy: “to bring the magnificence of the cosmos to the students and to show them that through careful observations, experiments and interpretations, we humans have the potential to understand how our universe works.”
I mean, c’mon, this guy twirls a donut about his head, wears different self-made shirts to class, and plays music. You have to give the guy major props for that.
You can watch Filippenko in action every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3pm in Wheeler auditorium or enjoy his antics in your room, via webcast.
Nice. This guy’s a legend. Good to see him get national props.
Comment by pineapple kingdom — November 18, 2006 @ 1:52 am
Alex’s class was so good, I had friends who weren’t even enrolled in classes meeting me three times a week for lectures. And I still remember quite a bit of it — eight years down the road.
The two best professors I had at Cal: Alex Filippenko and Carla Hesse.
L.L.
Comment by L. L. Taraval — December 1, 2006 @ 5:08 pm