CLEMSON -- Clemson University professor Joel Brawley will receive the nation's most prestigious college mathematics teaching award at this week's joint meeting of the Mathematical Association of America and the American Mathematical Society.
The award ceremony will be held Thursday, Jan 14, in San Antonio, Texas, where Brawley will receive the MAA's "Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching." The award includes a $1,000 prize and honors college teachers who have been widely recognized as extraordinarily successful and whose teaching effectiveness has been shown to have had influence beyond their own institutions.
The award citation called Brawley the "epitome of what an ideal faculty member should be."
"I feel very honored, deeply appreciative and extremely fortunate," said Brawley, who has taught mathematics at Clemson since 1965. "There are many excellent teachers who deserve the Haimo award, and my receiving it is the greatest honor of my teaching career - something I will cherish all my life."
"Most of all, I feel very fortunate to be rewarded for doing something that I truly love doing," said Brawley, "Of all the things I do at Clemson, the most important - and fun - are teaching and working with students."
Brawley's credits include award-winning teacher, nationally known lecturer, mentor of future college teachers and internationally known researcher in finite field theory. His innovative teaching style, which occasionally features a Southern-drawled blend of mathematics and music - not to mention Brawley's trademark straw hat - has sparked music-math seminars and workshops for audiences ranging from fellow mathematicians to visiting elderhostelers.
During the last several years, he has become nationally known as a mentor of future college professors through a pilot program he developed at Clemson that prepares young Ph.D's to be better classroom teachers. For the past four summers, he has also run a freshman calculus workshop for minority engineering and science students at Clemson.
"I have never had a professor who exuded so much enthusiasm for his job," said former student Wilma B. Shealy, now an award-winning math teacher at Easley High School. "He is unbelievable; he has a gift that I have never seen matched in any other professor. I always describe him as 'God's gift to teaching.'"
"Our students, faculty and alumni have long been aware of the high quality of Joel's teaching, and I am pleased that his peers from the Mathematical Association of America have also recognized his distinguished classroom efforts," said Thomas Keinath, dean of Clemson's College of Engineering and Science. "Joel and professors like him prove that the term 'National Champion' is not limited to athletic excellence here at Clemson."
Brawley, a Mooresville, N.C., native, holds an undergraduate degree in engineering, a master's in applied mathematics and a doctoral degree in pure mathematics, all from North Carolina State University.
His numerous awards include an Alumni Distinguished Professorship in 1982, the Class of '39 Award for Faculty Excellence in 1990, a Governor's Distinguished Professor designation in 1995, the American Association of University Professors Award for Merit in 1997 and, just this past spring, the regional Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics.
In addition to his teaching, he has published a monograph on finite field theory and has written more than 70 refereed publications. Since 1975, he had been a government consultant on cryptography for the National Security Agency.
He and his wife, Fran, have three children and four grandchildren.