Few tributes are more precious to a professor than the testimonials of students. Associate Professor Dan Lieman has that and more with his Provost's Outstanding Junior Faculty Teaching Award.
Lieman's students wrote letters of recommendation for their professor, whom they see as an influence in their lives and their education.
MU gymnast Kelly McKinnie, a former MU "Athlete of the Week," picks Lieman as her favorite professor because of his encouragement and because he "has helped me focus my direction of study."
The award cites Lieman for two distinguishing features of his teaching: "That he excites his students about the material and their ability to master it, and that he creates opportunities for students both inside and outside the classroom. Lieman is someone who loves mathematics and wants to share this with his students."
Colleague Peter Casazza calls his presence in the classroom mesmerizing. "Students catch his energy and are impressed by his persona. While they stand in awe of his mathematical talents, they see him as approachable and down to earth. Dan is someone who is always encouraging students and giving them time outside the classroom."
Student classroom care is only a fraction of the contributions Lieman makes to education in math. He is equally accomplished and nationally recognized for his teaching outside the traditional classroom.
Lieman has received multiple grants to create extracurricular programs for students. At Columbia University he won a grant to design and implement a three-day program for young women from inner-city high schools.
At Mizzou, he secured a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER grant and funding from the A&S Dean's Office and the Graduate School to support a five-year summer program for students who are not math majors. Lieman selects students who have completed the calculus sequence but have not chosen a major or are unsure of their choice. He exposes them to the excitement of discovery in mathematics research.
The results are astonishing. In summer 1998 the program participants accomplished a feat that is extremely rare for non-major researchers. They produced a research paper that will be published in a recognized research journal. In addition, most of the participants have decided to major in mathematics, and several of the students went on to summer internships, also with Lieman's help.
Another important consequence of Lieman's efforts is the department's success in attracting four excellent African-American students into the Graduate Program.
In conjunction with the math department's Leaders program, Lieman has designed and is implementing a two-year program that allows students to experience a summer of on-campus research followed by a corporate internship the second summer. NSF's Division of Mathematical Sciences is studying the program as a national model.
"The notice from NSF is a tribute to the effort and creativity that Lieman brings to his programs," Casazza says.
Tributes and teaching awards are not uncommon for Lieman. At Brown University, he won the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching, an honor accorded to only one out of every 300 to 400 graduate teachers. In his first semester at Mizzou, he received an Outstanding Teaching Award from the Men of Engineering.
Lieman came to MU in 1996 after spending a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, Calif., and three years as a Ritt Assistant Professor at Columbia University. Shortly after he arrived at MU, Lieman's NSF CAREER Grant was supplemented by NSF to include a special research program for undergraduates, "Explorations in Mathematics."