Provost’s Award Winners to Be Keynote Speakers at March 2 Symposium

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Professors Jennifer Switkes, Winnie Dong, and Richard Willson, the 2014-15 Provost's Awards for Excellence winners, will be the keynote speakers at the Provost's Awards Symposium March 2.
Professors Jennifer Switkes, Winnie Dong, and Richard Willson, the 2014-15 Provost’s Awards for Excellence winners, will be the keynote speakers at the Provost’s Awards Symposium March 2.

The trio of professors who were honored with the 2014-15 Provost’s Awards for Excellence will be the keynote speakers at the Provost’s Awards Symposium on Wednesday, March 2.

A reception for the Provost’s Awards winners will start 3 p.m. in the Bronco Student Center’s Ursa Major suite. The symposium featuring the professors will run from 3:30 to 5 p.m.

Math Professor Jennifer Switkes earned the Excellence in Teaching award. She abides by five values in teaching: “excellence, honor, integrity, love and purpose.” Her service extends beyond Cal Poly Pomona. For one semester, she taught a class on differential equations to students at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.

Winny Dong, the director of the Office of Undergraduate Research, received the Excellence in Service award. She is committed to reducing the achievement gap for first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students and has secured $13.2 million for scholarships and programs. Dong has been named the Provost Teacher-Scholar on three occasions.

The winner of the Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activities award, Richard Willson is professor of urban and regional planning and a leading expert on transportation, land-use planning and parking policy. Willson has commented on planning issues for NPR, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal.

The awardees will address faculty, staff, students and administrators about how their scholarly work invigorates and inspires them. They also will reflect on the transformative effect their legacy of work has had on students, the campus community and on society, and how that has led to their own transformation.

The Provost’s Awards for Excellence, which is in its fifth year, were developed to recognize faculty who have earned distinction in the areas of teaching, scholarship and creative activities, and service. The awards are made possibly by a grant from the $42 million Kellogg Legacy Project Endowment.

The messages of Swtikes, Dong and Willson reflect the mission of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation: transforming lives through education.