Lowry receives EMU's Full-Time Lecturers Outstanding Teaching Award

Joe Lowry doesn't give tests. He holds "celebrations of knowledge."

One of his astronomy classes so embraced the idea that, on an exam day, Lowry walked in to find a room full of students wearing party hats. One student had even baked cupcakes.

PHYSICS IS FUN: (above, from left) Joe Lowry, an EMU physics and astronomy lecturer, works in a Strong Hall lab with student Julia Hoot, a senior from Petersburg, and Hamdi Ahmed, a senior from Ann Arbor. Lowry was recently named the recipient of the 2007-08 Full-Time Lecturers Outstanding Teaching Award.

"I like to make it fun," said Lowry, an Eastern Michigan University physics and astronomy lecturer, who was the recent recipient of EMU's 2007-08 Full-Time Lecturers Outstanding Teaching Award. "Physics is so much fun for me, and many students come in with a phobia of physics and math. I like to have them leave with an appreciation of the fact that it's not all drudgery."

In the same sense, Lowry said he hopes the award will reflect positively on the physics department.

The award, bestowed by Academic Affairs, requires documentation showing a lecturer's commitment to the education of students and their ability to facilitate student learning from effective teaching. Lowry will receive a $1,000 honorarium and a plaque. He will be honored on a date yet to be determined.

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