Going the extra mile in the classroom has its benefits: four professors received the 2011 University of Memphis Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching Award at a ceremony in the Rose Theatre in April. Each accepted a $2,000 prize during Convocation.

The University of Memphis Alumni Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award went to (from left) Antonio de Velasco, assistant professor in the Department of Communication; Cathy Dice, instructor of English; Emin Babakus, professor in the Department of Marketing & Supply Chain Management; and Margaret Vandiver, professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice (not pictured). (Photo by Rhonda Cosentino)

The honored teachers are Emin Babakus, professor in the Department of Marketing & Supply Chain Management; Cathy Dice, instructor of English; Antonio de Velasco, assistant professor in the Department of Communication; and Margaret Vandiver, professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice. The award recognizes outstanding teaching at the undergraduate and graduate and levels.

Babakus joined the Department of Marketing & Supply Chain Management in 1985. Babakus teaches primarily marketing research at the undergraduate and graduate levels. His research appears in leading journals, including Journal of Marketing Research, Decision Sciences, and Journal of Retailing. He is a recipient of a First Tennessee Professorship, Palmer Research Professorship and numerous awards in recognition of his scholarship.

Dice received her BA in English and history from the University of Memphis in 1989 and earned a master’s in English in 1991. She has taught at the University for more than 15 years. Dice enjoys teaching a wide variety of undergraduate courses, including Freshman Composition, Literary Heritage, African-American Literature and Children’s Literature. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she serves as the director of the WordSmith Writing Olympics, the department’s annual writing contest for local middle and high school students, and as the coordinator of the English Internship Program.

de Velasco is inspired by the classical ideals of liberal education, and strives to equip students for an active life in the public arena by training them in the art of rhetoric. Since his arrival in 2005, de Velasco has earned praise for his passionate pursuit of this civic mission. One student said, “His ability to engage the class as a whole is unique and creates an environment where everyone leaves learning something every class. I will apply his teaching in my interactions for the rest of my life.”

Vandiver has been with the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice since 1992, where she teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate programs. Her primary research interests are capital punishment, homicide and collective violence. Vandiver has published numerous articles and two recent books, Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South (sole author) and Tennessee’s New Abolitionists (co-editor). Her current research is focused on historical homicides in Memphis.