UNLV special education professor Susan P. Miller has been named the 1998 Nevada Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Miller was recognized for her achievement Wednesday (Oct. 20) during a meeting of the UNLV Faculty Senate. A proclamation by Gov. Bob Miller honoring her was presented during the meeting.
"It's wonderful to receive this honor, but I really see it as a recognition of the good work that all my colleagues and I in the College of Education have done as a team," said Miller, who joined the UNLV faculty in 1991.
The Professor of the Year program, which was started in 1981, salutes the most outstanding undergraduate instructors in the country. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching sponsors an annual national competition from which the state winners are also selected; 553 candidates were nominated for this year's U.S. competition.
Each candidate must be nominated for the award by her institution and receive letters of support from current or former students, colleagues, and presidents or academic deans.
Award recipients are selected on the basis of extraordinary dedication to undergraduate teaching, which is demonstrated by excellence in the following areas: impact on and involvement with undergraduate students; scholarly approach to teaching; service to undergraduate education in the institution, community, and profession; and support from colleagues and current and former undergraduate students.
In nominating Miller for the award, UNLV President Carol C. Harter described her as a "consummate classroom instructor" who received UNLV's Alex and Faye Spanos Distinguished
"Professor Miller supplements this superior classroom teaching with equally strong work as a program coordinator, undergraduate and graduate advisor, participant in local and national professional organizations, and workshop presenter," she said. "This breadth and quality of teaching-related service helps to set Professor Miller apart from `strong' faculty and place her in the category of `excellent.'"
Harter also lauded Miller for her scholarship, saying, "Professor Miller's publications, which have earned her the College of Education's Research Award, address a broad array of strategies for mentoring prospective special education teachers, instructional approaches for the special education classroom, and particularly curricula for teaching math to learning disabled students. Both the quantity and quality of this body of scholarship is most impressive."
In a statement she was asked to submit with her entry form, Miller described her personal philosophy concerning her role as a teacher.
"Teachers create futures through the knowledge they share and the example they set," she said. "My mission, as a university teacher, is to contribute to the creation of a future that includes competent, knowledgeable educators who value the students they teach."
Miller, who earned both her doctoral and master's degrees in special education from the University of Florida, received the Lilly Fong Distinguished Professor Award from UNLV's College of Education in 1996.
She is co-author of the "Strategic Math Series" of seven books designed for teachers to use when teaching math to students with learning disabilities. She also has authored or co-authored six book chapters and 10 monographs related to instructional practices in special education. Additionally, she has written or co-written 45 refereed journal articles.
