• Multimedia    |    Photo Gallery    |    Home   

April 2012

UCO Professor Receives Oklahoma Medal for Excellence

Gladys Lewis, Ph.D., professor of English at UCO, has been awarded the 2012 Oklahoma Medal for Excellence in Teaching at a Regional University or Community College. Presented by the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence, The Medal for Excellence honors an outstanding teacher at a public regional university or community college with a $5,000 cash prize and glass sculpture.

The Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence has awarded University of Central Oklahoma English Professor Gladys Lewis, Ph.D., with the foundation’s 2012 Oklahoma Medal for Excellence in Teaching at a Regional University or Community College.

The Medal for Excellence honors an outstanding teacher at a public regional university or community college with a $5,000 cash prize and glass sculpture.

“We at UCO are so very proud of Dr. Gladys Lewis, and appreciative of the many lives she’s transformed here at Central by modeling exceptional teaching each day,” said UCO President Don Betz, Ph.D., who won the Medal for Excellence in 1991 while at Northeastern University in Tahlequah, Okla.

A professor whose teaching career spans 49 years, Lewis has received every major teaching award offered by Central.

“Dr. Lewis’ courses are among the most demanding and most successful in our department, and she is by far the most popular and effective director of master’s theses on our faculty,” said David Macey, Ph.D., English department chair.

Lewis is one of five outstanding Oklahoma public school educators honored with the award this year.

Medals are awarded annually to outstanding Oklahoma teachers, one each at the elementary, secondary, community college/regional university and research university levels. In addition, the foundation presents a Medal for Excellence to an exceptional administrator from the elementary or secondary level.

Previous Medal for Excellence recipients from Central include Wei Chen, Ph.D., assistant dean of Central’s College of Mathematics and Science and professor of engineering and physics, who received the 2011 Oklahoma Medal for Excellence in Teaching at a Regional University or Community College.