Ledger

Every year the students, staff, faculty and alumni of the University of Washington, Tacoma nominate instructors for the Distinguished Teaching Award. This year, Cheryl Greengrove, an associate professor in environmental science was chosen as the winner.

Of the honor Greengrove said, “It is great to be recognized for doing something that I love.”

This year eight instructors were nominate, and the task of choosing just one fell to a committee consisting of last year’s recipient, the chair of the alumni association, the president of the ASUWT and a faculty member from each of four other academic programs other than the one represented by the previous awardee.

“Among an outstanding field of nominees Greengrove impressed the committee with her work ethic, innovative approaches, and the degree of respect she has fostered among students and colleagues at UWT,” said UWT Professor Mike Allen, committee chair

According to the students who nominated her, Greengrove provides her students with opportunities to gain real world knowledge by including them in her own research projects. “One of our goals for the program is to always create opportunities and pathways for students,” said Greengrove.

Thanks to Greengrove, environmental science students have been able to perform marine field research on various ships throughout the West Coast and then present their findings to the community. She feels that it is important that her students get out into the field and learn as much as they can about what is in their own backyard, she said. By living so close to Puget Sound, her students are able to obtain experience that will help them prepare for future employment as well as help the community.

Greengrove is a physical oceanographer, which means that she studies the “motion in the ocean.” She was born and raised in New Jersey, and said that she wanted to be an oceanographer from a very young age. She describes herself as a “water-baby”, and growing up spent a great deal of time on her grandparents’ boat, learning as much as she could about the ocean.

Currently Greengrove is involved in two research projects; one is studying harmful algal blooms in Puget Sound that cause shellfish poising. The other is exploring the physical, chemical and biological oceanographic conditions in the fjords of Berkley and Clayoquot Sounds, British Columbia, Canada. She has had her work published in various journals, including the Journal of Geoscience Education and the Journal of College Sciences.

With UWT transitioning into a four-year campus next fall, Greengrove has been hard at work developing curriculum for the new freshmen class. Greengrove says that she loves teaching at UWT, that “the students and teachers are great.” She also said that she loves the fact that UWT is such a unique campus, and is excited about what is to come as it transitions into a four-year school.

In addition to creating an environmental science program and modeling it to fit students’ needs, Greengrove has spent hundreds of hours helping to design the new science building. Thanks to her efforts with this project, her students have highly skilled facilities and equipment, which provides them with better learning opportunities.

Greengrove received her B.A. in physics, cum laude, from Moravian College, a small college in Pennsylvania. From there she went on to Columbia University and received her master’s degree and eventually a doctorate in 1996 in geosciences, oceans and atmospheres.

Upon graduation from Columbia Greengrove move to upstate New York to accept a one-year teaching position at a small college. It was there that she fell in love with teaching. According to Greengrove, “teaching is great because I get to share what I love with other people.”

In 1991, Greengrove relocated to the Pacific Northwest to Oregon to work as a consultant for various firms. Before coming to UWT, Greengrove worked with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and taught part-time at various Puget Sound area universities and community colleges.

Greengrove joined the UWT team in 1996. At that time there was no science building and no program for students wishing to study environmental science. Along with Professor David Secord, Greengrove founded a program for those wishing to major in environmental science, along with curriculum for non-majors seeking science classes. She also established the GIS Certificate Program at UWT, which is jointly administered by the Environmental Science and Urban Studies Programs.

For being selected as this year’s winner, Greengrove will be recognized at the UW Tacoma and UW Seattle awards ceremonies as well as the UWT commencement.

Article Tools