Teaching Prizes Awarded

Three professors and a lecturer will receive the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize tomorrow during the honor society's annual Literary Exercises.

This year's prizes will be awarded to Naumburg Professor of Music David B. Lewin '54, Professor of History and Science Everett I. Mendelsohn, Lecturer on Environmental Science and Public Policy Daniel L. Perlman and Assistant Professor of Computer Science Margo I. Seltzer '83.

The awards recognize "distinguished teaching in...thesis advising, Core courses, departmental teaching, as well as small seminars," said Owen J. Gingerich, chair of the prize committee and professor of astronomy and the history of science.

Mendelsohn said the student selection of the nominees for the award makes winning it especially valuable.

"It gives great pleasure to know that students take our teaching seriously enough to praise it and to criticize it when it doesn't go well," Mendelsohn said. "I look upon this award as one of the high points in my years at Harvard."

Mendelsohn said he is excited about the ceremony, "almost the way an undergraduate would [be] about getting a degree."

Mendelsohn received his nomination from Michael D. Gordin '96, a history and science concentrator he had taught in several classes and whose senior thesis he had advised.

Mendelsohn emphasized the importance of the award, particularly in its capacity to "give greater encouragement, especially to the younger faculty."

"I think that at a university like Harvard where scholarship...looms so large, we sometimes forget that teaching is also very important," he said.

The Literary Exercises will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow in Sanders Theatre. They will feature readings by Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies Diana L. Eck and poet David Ferris.