Two Faculty Members Win SCHEV Award

For the sixth time since the program was introduced in 1987, Old Dominion has two winners in the annual State Council of Higher Education’s Outstanding Faculty Awards competition: Larry Hatab and Larry Weinstein. This also marked the 11th consecutive year that ODU has had a winner in the highly competitive program, which is funded by the Dominion Foundation.

Hatab and Weinstein were among 12 college and university faculty members from across the commonwealth who were honored Feb. 19 in Richmond. They each received $5,000.

In addition to sharing a first name, the two ODU professors share a passion for teaching, along with a reputation among students for making two of the most difficult academic disciplines – philosophy and physics – both understandable and meaningful.

Hatab, who holds the titles of University Professor and Louis I. Jaffe Professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, has taught at the university for 32 years. In their course evaluations, students consistently give Hatab high marks for his enthusiasm, expertise, challenging standards and ability to explain and communicate difficult philosophical material.

He has had great success teaching some of the most demanding thinkers in the Western tradition. Hatab combines a depth of expression with a sense of humor, a passion for ideas and a certain theatricality, all of which bring philosophy alive in the classroom.

“I suppose I was born to be a teacher,” he said. “I am extremely fortunate to have a career doing something that fits my nature so well. And teaching philosophy goes right to my core.”

His approach to teaching, he explains, is based on the gateway principle, the relevance principle and the patience principle:

“First, never forget what it is like to come to philosophical questions for the first time. The easiest trap to fall in is assuming that what is obvious or second nature to you should also be evident to students.

“Second, always connect philosophy with concrete life concerns, and this not simply as a pedagogical technique, but as a measure of philosophy’s true meaning and importance.

“Third, have the patience to let students come to important insights at their own pace and through often uneven steps of development.”

Hatab’s success in the classroom has received praise over the years from both students and colleagues.

Weinstein, like Hatab, has been designated by Old Dominion as a University Professor for his excellence in teaching. He has taught at ODU for 16 years.

Weinstein, whose specialization is nuclear physics, teaches physics at every level, from 101 to Graduate Quantum Mechanics. In communicating the big-picture message that physics is crucial to understanding how the world works, he demonstrates ideas and principles via experiments that employ a variety of apparatus, ranging from rubber bands to flame tubes.

Recently, he introduced SCALE-UP, which stands for Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs. Students work on activities in carefully structured groups of three, sitting around tables with white boards and laptops. While the students work, the instructor roams the classroom – asking questions, sending one team to help another, gently guiding a group, all the while building relationships with the students.

Notes master’s student T. David Pyron, “He made time to work with his students until ‘they got it’ and to feed their interest in areas beyond the scope of required learning.”

Weinstein says what he loves about being a scientist is that he gets to “investigate unexplained phenomena, determine possible causes, communicate findings and improve people’s lives.”

He offers the following analogy for the challenging research in the subatomic world that he conducts at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility: “The method of study comes naturally to any 5-year-old: hit it hard and see what comes out. We hit the nucleus with high-energy electrons from a particle accelerator ... and then we detect the particles that come out of the collision using huge spectrometers comprised of massive magnets and complicated particle detectors.”