Mahmoud El-Halwagi, professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been named a recipient of the first-ever Teaching Excellence Award, a voluntary, student-selected honors program launched last fall by The Texas A&M University System.

The winners represent the top 18 percent of the nearly 500 faculty members who participated. Awards are based on rankings from uations created and administered by students, with weighting for factors such as class size.

As part of the program, a total of 80 faculty members from the Texas A&M University, Prairie View A&M University and Texas A&M University-Kingsville have been honored. El-Halwagi is one of only 10 faculty members at Texas A&M designated in the top three percent category. Faculty members ranking in the top three percent will be awarded $5,000 to $10,000. The next 15 percent receive $2,500 to $5,000.

“Although I am very active in research, extension and service activities, I truly consider teaching to be a primary passion and a very rewarding aspect of the job,” El-Halwagi said. “I am also fortunate to be able to bring my research findings to the classroom and to get valuable feedback from the students. To have the opportunity of impacting the students and contributing to their education and professional development is a tremendous responsibility that I take with seriousness, delight, pride and honor. I am truly thrilled to receive an award that is driven and led by students. This means a whole lot to me.

“The overarching concept in my teaching philosophy is ‘one student at a time.’ Regardless of the class size, I endeavor to create an individual learning experience for each and every student.”

In a congratulatory letter to faculty winners, a representative of Student-Led Awards for Teaching Excellence (SLATE), the student organization that administered the uations at Texas A&M, lauded the award winners’ efforts as going “above and beyond the typical expectations to deliver a first-rate education.”

The $1.1 million program, funded through the Texas A&M System, was initiated by Chancellor Michael D. McKinney in 2008 to honor and financially reward the system’s top teachers as selected by students. For the spring 2009 semester, the program is expanding to all nine campuses of the Texas A&M System and will increase to include the top 20 percent of participating faculty. All faculty members are eligible.

“We are off to a tremendous start in our pilot year,” McKinney said. “In this time of economic hardship, I am especially happy that we can help those hard-working educators who devote their lives to our students and to the future of the state of Texas. As the teaching awards program continues to grow and evolve, I think we’ll see a positive effect on the morale of our teachers, the interactivity of our students and the quality of the classroom experience for everyone.”

A reception for the honorees is scheduled to take place from 3-5 p.m., March 6th in the rotunda of the Academic Building.

Written by: Ryan Garcia at ryan.garcia99@tamu.edu

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