Indian-American wins outstanding teacher award

Washington, Sep 4: An Indian-American associate professor has been named for the 2015 C. Holmes MacDonald Outstanding Teacher Award for demonstrating special dedication and creativity in her teaching. Preethika Kumar, who teaches electrical engineering at Wichita State University will receive the national honour on November 19 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the official news and media relations website of the Kansas-based university said on Thursday. The award means a lot to me because, to begin with, it was completely initiated by the students, Kumar was quoted as saying. The award is presented by the honour society of New York-based Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. She has been teaching at Wichita State since 2007. Over the years, I have learned that to be a good teacher, in addition to being able to communicate the subject matter effectively, one needs to be able to build and sustain a relationship with one's students based on trust, mutual respect and care, Kumar said. She also makes sure to apply her lessons to the real world the students will soon be entering when they look for a job. This has helped me be a better teacher and helped me fashion my students to be better engineers, Kumar said.