Dr. Russell Larsen receives top teaching award

Dr. Russ Larsen
Thursday, March 30, 2017 - 7:00pm

Four University of Iowa faculty members have won the 2017 President and Provost Award for Teaching Excellence in recognition of their years of outstanding teaching. Among them is Dr. Russ Larsen, senior lecturer in the Department of Chemistry. 

Professor Larsen has a career-long record of extensive and outstanding contributions to the teaching mission of the Department of Chemistry. Students are not only grateful for his extraordinary ability to explain complex chemistry concepts in an engaging way, they also appreciate him as a generous, inspiring, and empathetic mentor who has positively affected their lives, often even well after they’ve left his class. Teaching assistants and faculty colleagues also deeply value his mentorship, especially those who are new to the challenges of teaching very large courses. He has played a defining role in developing and modernizing the first-year general chemistry curriculum and is actively engaged in many educational development efforts at the university level. His teaching and the improvements he has spearheaded have had a lasting positive impact on tens of thousands of UI students. He has been recognized for teaching excellence many times, including with the 2012 Collegiate Teaching Award.