Cherry picked as Piper Award nominee

ERIKA THOMAS
THE SIGNAL

Stephen Cherry, professor of sociology, is being honored as UHCL’s 2013-2014 Minnie Stevens Piper Excellence in Teaching Award nominee. Cherry will represent UHCL in a competition on the state level for the Piper Award, which honors college and university professors.

The Piper Award began in 1958 and is awarded annually to 10 teachers from across the state of Texas. The Piper Award recognizes professors for their excellence in teaching at the collegiate level, in and out of the classroom; whether they teach at a public or private, two- or four-year school. The professors who are awarded the Piper Award at the state level will receive a certificate of merit, a gold pin and a $5,000 honorarium. In February/early March the 10 finalist winners for the state of Texas will be announced.

Nominations for the Piper Award come from both students and faculty. Every fall, nomination forms and ballot boxes are placed at the entrance of each building on campus, and email notifications are sent out to students and faculty. In late September, a selection committee is formed, which consists of four students and four faculties each representing one of UHCL’s four schools: School of Business, School of Education, School of Human Sciences and Humanities, and School of Science and Computer Engineering.

The UHCL Piper Award committee reviews the nominations received from September through October. After the committee reviews the nominations, the top five finalists are selected based on the number of nominations received and their ratio of credit hours taught. The committee also looks at the professors’ service on and off campus, as well as their dimensions of leadership.

“We were looking for excellence in teaching strategies and innovations,” said David Rachita, interim dean of students. “Cherry pushes his students to not only think about the academics of it, but real-world solutions.”

In addition to teaching, Cherry is also an author; his first book, titled “Faith, Family, and Filipino American Community Life,” was published by Rutgers University Press in 2013. His second book, titled “Global Religious Movements Across Borders: Sacred Service,” will be published later this month.

Cherry has served as a volunteer for the Center for the Healing of Racism in Houston on various projects dealing with American race relations since 1999.

In 2006 Cherry received the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion Distinguished Article, and in 2010 he was awarded the Meritorious Service Key Award at UHCL.

“Dr. Cherry makes us think in ways we never thought before, and challenged us in ways we were not expecting,” said one student in his/her nomination of Cherry. “Many of us lost track of class time and were captivated each time. Dr. Cherry has been the most influential professor I have ever had.”

Cherry has been nominated for the Piper Award four times in his five years of teaching at UHCL, this is Cherry’s first time to win the UHCL nomination.

“To be honest, I do not need to be nominated for the Piper Award to know that my students appreciate me and all that I do for them; this is just the “cherry” on the cake – pun intended,” Cherry joked then went on to add, “It is a tremendous honor, especially here at UHCL where we have so many great professors in the classroom it feels good to know that they appreciate all the hard work that goes into making a course dynamic or all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into mentoring them while juggling my own active research agenda.”

Cherry, a native from New Orleans, completed his bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Houston. After teaching public school for seven years while completing a master’s degree in sociology at the UHCL, he went on to receive his Ph.D. from the University of Texas-Austin in 2008. He took his first tenured-track position at the University of Southern Mississippi before returning to Texas to join UHCL.

“I was inspired to become a professor by my own mentors and wanted to be able to shape lives and careers the way I saw them doing for others,” Cherry said. “I am fortunate to have such great students and hope that I can continue to inspire them and shape their lives and careers the way so many mentors have done for me along the way.”

In April, UHCL President William Staples will host a luncheon honoring Cherry and the other five Piper Award nominees. The other five distinguished finalists are: Gary Boetticher, Lei Wu and Pradeep Buddharaju all associate professors of computer science, software engineering and computer information systems; Amy Lucas, associate professor of sociology and women’s studies; and Hakduran Koc, associate professor of computer engineering.