Texas A&M Prof X. Ben Wu Named A 2015 SEC Faculty Achievement Award Winner

Dr. X. Ben Wu, Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence at Texas A&M University, is a winner of the 2015 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award.

One faculty member from each SEC university who has excelled in teaching, research and scholarship is selected each year for the award.

Each award winner will become his or her university’s nominee for the 2015 SEC Professor of the Year Award and will receive a $5,000 honorarium from the SEC. The SEC Professor of the Year, to be named later this month, receives an additional $15,000 honorarium and will be recognized at the SEC Awards Dinner in May and the SEC Symposium in September.

Wu, professor of ecosystem science and management in Texas A&M’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and holder of the John Kincaid Professorship in Undergraduate Teaching Excellence, joined the university in 1995. Dr. Wu’s research focuses on landscape ecology and ecology education. He teaches an undergraduate course “Fundamentals of Ecology” and a graduate course “Landscape Analysis and Modeling.” He did his undergraduate study and taught in Lanzhou University in China before he entered the University of Tennessee for his graduate study in 1985.

“I am proud to join the SEC and its academic initiative, SECU in recognizing Dr. Ben Wu as the 2015 SEC Faculty Achievement Award winner for Texas A&M University,” offered Dr. Karan Watson. “Ben has made sharing his passion and philosophy for excellent teaching a cornerstone of his scholarly impact for both students and colleagues alike.”

Wu was named a Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence in 2009 and was selected to lead the Center for Teaching Excellence that same year, a position he held for five years. Wu says that his teaching philosophy is centered on “a passion for teaching, genuine care for students, and well-designed materials and approaches to foster effective learning.”

“The SEC Faculty Achievement Awards give us a unique opportunity to not only showcase the work of our outstanding faculty members, but to also support their future research and scholarship,” said Nicholas Zeppos, chancellor of Vanderbilt University and president of the Southeastern Conference. “These 14 men and women are some of the most accomplished and influential leaders in their disciplines, and I offer each of them my sincerest congratulations.”

To be eligible for the SEC Faculty Achievement Award, a professor must be a teacher or scholar at an SEC university; have achieved the rank of full professor at an SEC university; have a record of extraordinary teaching; and a record of scholarship that is recognized nationally and/or internationally.

SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said, “This year’s SEC Faculty Achievement Award recipients are to be commended for their unwavering dedication to higher education. The SEC is pleased to recognize 14 individuals who have made such a positive impact on our students.”

The SEC Faculty Achievement Awards and the SEC Professor of the Year Award are both selected by SEC provosts, and the program is administered by SECU, the academic initiative of the Southeastern Conference. SECU serves as the primary mechanism through which the collaborative academic endeavors and achievements of SEC students and faculty are promoted and advanced.

The full SEC announcement regarding the 2015 SEC Faculty Achievement Award, including the names and titles of the other recipients, can be viewed on the SECU site.