4 Professors receive First Teacher Goody Awards

With a record 21.6 million college students returning to school this fall, the Goody Awards recognized four college and university professors with Teacher Goody Awards for inspiring creativity on campuses coast-to-coast during our Back to School Campaign (Sept 1 – Oct 15, 2012.) Below is a recap of the first professors who are our Superstars this month. To empower our four Goody Awards interns, we let them nominate these teachers who were honored.

Marty Lang – During a Free Movies After Dark screening of his film Rising Star in Hartford, CT, former Quinnipiac University Film Professor Marty Lang was honored with the first Teacher Goody Award. Marty Lang is an award-winning filmmaker, professor and journalist, who attended the University of Connecticut, graduated with a B.A. in Journalism and covered entertainment for the New York Times. Senior Film Student Jake Raphaelson interviewed Marty about how he got his start before presenting the award. Marty’s first acting job was in a TV series on ESPN called “The Bronx is Burning.” The way Marty got a part was sneaking on the set with friends, and trying to get a job as a PA. When someone asked him if he was an actor, he said, yes, and then ended up playing a nightclub bouncer protecting Daniel Sunjata (“Grey’s Anatomy”.)

Daniel Cooper – Sophomore Monique Kaminskaya honored Santa Monica College Professor Daniel Cooper with a Teacher Goody Award on campus in September. When she presented the award at the end of his Counseling 20 class, Monique told his new students, “He was a great teacher for me. He definitely changed my life in a lot of ways. He taught us a lot of great things that you will use in your daily life, like time management.  The way that Mr. Cooper taught it to me, it stuck with me, and I am very grateful. He’s also very accepting and open-minded, and to me, he always reminded me of a skinnier version of Will Ferrell. He’s always there for everybody too, that’s definitely something unique.” After accepting the Teacher Goody Award, Daniel Cooper shared, “I love my job. I love my students. To me, I have the best job in the world.”

Dr. Ravi Aron – As a Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Baltimore, MD, Professor Ravi Aron PhD, was honored with one of the first Teacher Goody Awards in his class last week. He teaches how information technology and social media can be leveraged to help develop sustainable businesses in emerging markets. The award was presented by Global MBA student Tim Sissons, who brings a global prospective from New Zealand. Tim shared, “Professor Aron is a fantastic teacher and I’m really thrilled we were able to recognize his teaching and research efforts with this award. I think we tend to take great teaching for granted a little, but it is a very hard thing to do. Ravi really is a great teacher as you can see from the number of students who came out to congratulate him on his award.” Dr. Aron was previously voted Professor Of The Year, GMBA Class, Carey Business School in 2011, and received the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Industry Studies Fellowship Award for 2008.

Dr. Niloofar Haeri – Johns Hopkins University Professor and Anthropology Department Chair Niloofar Haeri PhD also received a Teacher Goody Award. Sophomore Nicole Bakabania presented the honor at the end of her class. Nicole described why she nominated this teacher, “Professor Haeri is a professor who loves to learn the material just as much as she loves teaching it. Her excitement and creativity when in her Anthropology courses, and her kindness and genuine love for the subject is why I wanted to honor her with a Teacher Goody Award.” Dr. Haeri raises these important questions, “How do translations contribute to the production of knowledge and to creativity within the local intellectual milieu? Which translations enter the curricula at universities and why?”

At the end of each Teacher Goody Award presentation, students were presented #GoodyAwards sunglasses, and asked to tweet 1 shout out to a favorite teacher, hero, team or anyone making a positive impact on the world. Our of the Goody Awards goals is to encourage you to Catch Someone Doing Good, and especially teachers who give so much to their students.

And big thanks to Staples; the Goody Awards is giving away a Kindle Fire as part of a Sweepstakes for this campaign. You can enter on our Facebook page http://facebook.com/goodyawards or Twitter http://bit.ly/Pgc4au. You can enter the sweepstakes until October 15th. Good luck, and give shout outs to your favorite teachers using #TeacherGoody #GoodyAwards.

(c) Goody Awards 2012