 | President Gives Award to Dedicated Faculty Member 
| Because of her ongoing research in western Kenya,
Laura Murphy was not able to receive her President’s
Award for teaching, but she was honored with the gift of a
chicken from residents with whom she is working in a
Kenyan village. (Photo courtesy of Laura Murphy) |
Dynamic, unusual, and interactive strategies mark the teaching methods of Laura Murphy, clinical associate professor of international health and development, and one of the recipients of the President’s Awards for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching. The awards, announced at Tulane’s commencement ceremony at the Louisiana Superdome on May 17, go to faculty members selected for their sustained and compelling record of excellence in teaching, learning and research. Each recipient of the President’s Awards receives a medal designed by the late Franklin Adams, professor emeritus of architecture, as well as $5,000.
Unfortunately, Murphy was unable to attend the commencement ceremony because she is in Nairobi, Kenya, conducting research on how the mobile phone is changing lives in an HIV/AIDS-affected village.
“I am delighted to be one of this year’s recipients of the President’s Awards,” says Murphy, who has worked around the world since 1983. She started teaching courses in international health and development at the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in 1999, and has been affiliated with the Stone Center for Latin American Studies since 2001. “It means a great deal to me.” Murphy, who e-mailed comments from an Internet café, says she began her teaching career feeling “nervous, uncertain and over-programmed.” But after 10 years teaching at Tulane, Murphy says she “has ended up student-focused, flexible and creative.”
“I value teaching’s role in changing lives, both mine and my students,” she says.
Murphy teaches a variety of topics, including applied social sciences, research methods, development theory, the social impact of AIDS and population-environment theory. She has designed a dozen new courses from scratch, including three international health graduate field courses that have been set in Guatemala, Brazil and Kenya.
“I learned to count on Tulane’s Innovative Learning Center and their enthusiastic staff and resources, especially for innovative computer-based technologies,” Murphy says. She has explored using technology to improve the learning experience, including the use of Tablet PCs and Blackboard course video websites, and new media for student projects. But Murphy also believes it’s important to get students out of the traditional classroom, taking them into the field to apply theoretical learning to real-life settings. Students respond enthusiastically.
“Students often tell me they choose Tulane because we offer these field courses,” Murphy says.
May 20, 2008 | | |
