Canington Wins Teaching Award
Deborah Canington, academic coordinator and lecturer in the Section of Plant Biology, received a 1998 Award for Excellence in Teaching from the UC Davis Academic Federation. The award is given annually to a non-Academic Senate faculty member for demonstrated teaching excellence at UC Davis. She shared this year’s award with Alida Morzenti, lecturer in avian sciences.
Canington received her Ph.D. from UC Davis in botany in 1989 and has been a lecturer since 1986. She teaches introductory plant biology and ecology. In addition, she now teaches a course in phycology (the study of algae) for plant biology majors. Canington voluntarily resurrected the course, learning phycology, a new discipline for her; updating the course content; and adding bryology (the study of mosses, hornworts, and liverworts), an area that was new both to the course and to her. She also designed a laboratory for introductory plant biology that was the model for two other introductory biology classes.
The course development led the Division of Biological Sciences to hire Canington as a laboratory coordinator, a position that she performs “with poise, maturity, professionalism and expertise,” according to division Dean Mark McNamee. In this position, she directs a technician and several aides in preparing and upgrading labs, and trains and oversees the work of 27 teaching assistants.
Canington also receives consistently excellent reviews from students, which can be attributed in part to the respect she accords them. “I always keep in mind the dignity of each student and the importance of their self-esteem in the learning process,” she says.
UC Davis Biological Sciences Newsletter - Summer 1998