Caviglia-Harris Earns Elzinga Teaching Award
SALISBURY, MD---Dr. Jill Caviglia-Harris of Salisbury University’s Economics and Finance Department recently was awarded the Southern Economic Association’s (SEA’s) 2010 Kenneth G. Elzinga Teaching Award.
”Dr. Caviglia-Harris is the model professor for me and so many of my colleagues at Salisbury University, as she skillfully integrates her teaching and equally impressive research, allowing both to feed off of and inform the other,” said Dr. Michael Lewis, who nominated her for the award. “Her impact on her students, the Environmental Studies Program and this University has been transformative in every sense of the word.”
She received the award during SEA’s annual conference in Atlanta, featuring distinguished guest lecturer Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom.
Caviglia-Harris played a leading role in developing SU’s Environmental Studies Program. As part of its curriculum, she teaches a required economics course for all environmental studies majors, including many students who may otherwise never be exposed to that subject.
“Good teachers can share the driving passion of their disciplines with disciplinary apprentices in their major program,” said Lewis. “Great teachers can translate the beauty of their discipline to outsiders. Jill has this gift.”
She has intertwined teaching and research while involving students in hands-on learning through research projects, data collection and fieldwork. The development of new teaching approaches has led to publications in economics education journals while empirical research has lead to the generation of student presentations and publications, and grant-funded fieldwork in the Amazon.
Caviglia-Harris has directed over 17 undergraduate projects, with more than 10 of these students continuing on to graduate school.
She has received SU’s Distinguished Faculty Award and the University System of Maryland’s highest teaching honor, the Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence. She earned her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Tennessee.
Named for Kenneth Elzinga, the much-lauded Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia, the Elzinga Award annually honors faculty members for outstanding contributions to economics education.
For more information call 410-543-6030 or visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu.