The award recognizes full-time faculty members with outstanding teaching records.
“Students learn in so many different ways that you have to try many different ways of explaining and communicating,” says Assistant Professor of Physics Peter Love.“Some will get it out of the book, some out of the lectures, some out of solving problems and some from discussions. I think it's better to have a toolkit with a bunch of different tools than a single philosophy.”
Love's teaching has not only made him popular among his Haverford pupils, but has also earned him the prestigious Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award. Funded by the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation, the award honors full-time faculty members with excellent teaching records.
“It's very moving to receive an award for teaching at Haverford, where so many of my colleagues are great teachers and where teaching is so highly valued,” says Love. “It also makes me very grateful for the mentorship I've received here from my colleagues in the physics department—[Associate Professor] Suzanne Amador Kane, [Professor] Walter Smith, and [Professor] Jerry Gollub. I also feel grateful to have good students who are prepared to work hard and who also offer some good advice.”
Love reaps his own rewards from teaching as he watches his students progress from their introductory courses to their senior theses. It's refreshing for him to view his field of study through the eyes of his students.“It's interesting how many ways there are of both understanding and misunderstanding physical concepts, and all of them illustrate some aspect of the subject,” he says.“Teaching across the curriculum here really helps one see the breadth and scope of physics, and the way that the same intellectual skills can be valuable across the discipline, and beyond it.”
