16
Eileen K. Rice, OP Award
for Outstanding Teaching
(Established as the Outstanding
Teaching Award; renamed following
Sister Eileen’s death.)
1979-80
Eileen Rice, OP*
1980-81
Timothy Husband
1981-82
David Van Horn, C.PP.S.*
1982-83
Beth Butler, OP
1983-84
Martha Manheim
1984-85
Sharon Weber, OP
1985-86
Carl Kaster
1986-87
Jack Bologna
1987-88
Timothy Husband
1988-89
Eileen Rice, OP*
1989-90
Mark Schersten
1990-91
Donna Kustusch, OP
1991-92
Saleem Peeradina
1992-93
Anne Russell Mayeaux
1993-94
William R. Blackerby
Delinda Crane
Gertrude McSorley
Peggy Treece Myles
1994-95
Susan Matych-Hager
Frank Rotsaert, CSC
Christine Reising
1995-96
Dominic P. Scibilia
John D. Wittersheim
1996-97
Mark DiPietro
Thomas K. Venner
1997-98
Mary A. Griffin
Mary Weeber
1998-99
Anthony Scioly
1999-2000 Delinda Crane
Patricia Schnapp, RSM
2000-01
Lana Taylor
* Deceased
Anthony Scioly
Sharon Weber, OP ‘69
The satisfactions of teaching are considerable, he says. “It’s rewarding to watch students go through the process of discovery
and understanding. There’s nothing more
thrilling than when a student finally gets it.
You see the perplexed looks, then one day
you see the lights go on. It’s priceless.”
Sharon started out teaching elementary
school. “I used to say it was a miracle when
first-graders learned to read—that they could
put sounds together and make words. There
are similar moments in the life of a college
student: when you go from doing assignments to really learning, from answering the
teacher’s questions to asking your own.”
(Chemistry)
Tony Scioly intended to work as a chemist
in business until he became a teaching assistant in graduate school. “The first time I
taught a course, it was like nothing I had
ever experienced,” he recalls. “I enjoyed it a
lot and I was able to establish rapport with
the students. It occurred to me maybe this
was something I should think about.”
Small classes and Siena’s overall size make it
a special place to be a teacher and a student,
Tony adds. He sees many students arrive as
unsure freshmen; but by the time they graduate, they are confident and ready to land a
job or enter graduate school. “I’m amazed”
by our alumni,” he says. “They have great
jobs, Ph.D.s—it’s rewarding to see.”
Lana Taylor
(Mathematics)
Magic in the classroom? Sure, Lana Taylor
says, thanks to graphing calculators, which
have “changed the way we teach math.”
The graphing calculator “enables students to
visualize things that we couldn’t do before,”
she says. “It allows them access to real-life
problems with complicated numbers instead
of the nice little integers” in traditional math
books. “This ability to visualize what is
happening through a graph and then make
connections to
the symbolic is
magic.”
(Chemistry)
Alumna Sharon Weber came back to Siena
to teach chemistry. Now, as Dean of the
College of Arts and Sciences, she teaches
only occasionally. She misses it sometimes,
especially the laboratories. “Chemistry labs
are an important part of what I liked about
teaching—it gave us a chance to really watch
students explore and experiment.”
Professor Emerita Miriam Michael Stimson,
OP ‘36 was one of Sharon’s mentors at
Siena Heights. “I tell the students that if
they listen carefully, the chairs in the lecture
hall could answer their chemistry questions
because Miriam was that good as a teacher
and those chairs heard it all.”
John Wittersheim
(Art)
John Wittersheim planned to follow others in
his family and work at Ford Motor Co.; but
when that didn’t pan out, he was ready to go
in a different direction. That’s just one of the
examples he uses in his teaching. The moral
of the story: Prepare for the unexpected.
John earned his MFA at Cranbrook. He
worked at Ford until he discovered he was
allergic to the materials of his job. So he
came to Siena and was hired by Sr. Jeannine
Klemm, “the
matriarch of
Studio Angelico.”
“It’s exciting to watch students come
into class and find out that they can
do it.”
There’s magic
in empowering
students, Lana
says. “It’s exciting to watch
Lana Taylor, Mathematics
students, especially non-t