洛克伍德获得杰斐逊教学奖
Paleontologist 罗文洛克伍德 received the 2009 Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award, the highest award given to young faculty members at the College of William and Mary.
Lockwood, an associate professor in the 地质系, characterizes her classroom manner as “loud, enthusiastic, and somewhat obnoxious.” In the courses she teaches, which range from large introductory courses to smaller, upper-level seminars, she’s apt to be found gesticulating wildly, walking up and down the lecture hall aisles to catch students’ attention, and coaxing students into actively participating.
“As an undergraduate, I sat through far too many lectures that were passive. The professor stood at the front and read through his or her notes,” she said. “I try to be much more enthusiastic and interactive with students, even in large intro classes. I want to get them up, asking and answering questions, volunteering for demos and actively discussing the issues that we’re tackling that day.”
For example, her intro classes flip pennies to demonstrate radiometric decay, critique the “science” behind blockbuster disaster movies, and learn to predict the weather. 在她的恐龙时代课上，学生们就霸王龙是掠食者还是食腐动物展开辩论，并制作真人大小的恐龙博物馆展品。 在她的新生灭绝研讨会上，学生们发现自己在写《国家地理》（National geographic）式的关于灭绝的文章，并在国家动物园（National Zoo）圈养繁殖中心的幕后游览。 她强调要尽可能多地了解学生的名字，即使是在100人的入门课程上。
“The students respond so positively to learning their names that it automatically makes a large classroom seem smaller,” Lockwood said. “I think it makes participating in class much less intimidating.”
Lockwood’s students, in turn, describe her using phrases such as “incredibly conscientious, completely accessible and contagiously passionate.” 她的奉献和热情为她的学科服务，也为学院服务； many geology majors found their academic calling in a Lockwood section of an introductory course such as GEO 110: Earth’s Environmental Systems or her 16-student freshman seminar, titled Extinction is Forever, a combination of paleontology and conservation biology.
“The majority of students who major in geology at William & Mary entered the college intending to major in other fields,” Lockwood said, “and they fell in love with geology in an intro class, on a field trip or through a freshman seminar. 我们部门努力促进一个紧密团结的社区。 大多数教师和专业都是直呼其名的。 Every course involves field trip opportunities.”
Some intro students underestimate the rigor of geology: “A handful of students enroll in my intro class, expecting it to be ‘rocks for jocks,’ then panic ensues after the first exam. 我试着在第一天上课时强调，我们所有的入门课程都是专业课程。 Besides, geology is much, much, much more than rocks.”
Lockwood’s research specialty, paleontology, is the study of prehistoric life through fossils. 她研究大灭绝和气候变化，以及它们如何影响海洋动物的进化史。 她的研究范围从白垩纪末期的物种灭绝（恐龙灭绝）及其对海洋生态系统的影响，到使用切萨皮克湾的化石记录来建立生态恢复的基线。
“I feel strongly that my research makes me a better teacher and that my teaching makes me a better researcher. The two really feed off of each other,” Lockwood says.
She not only teaches an upper-level course in the subject—cross-listed in biology as well as geology—but also regularly incorporates geology majors into her research, often giving them projects of their own. 她的学生经常被选中在学术协会会议上发表演讲，许多学生是在同行评审期刊上发表论文的合著者。 她指出，在她所在的院系，让本科生参与报告级或出版级的研究是标准的操作程序。
“When I joined her lab as a timid sophomore, she gave me a very structured project and checked on me often,” wrote Sarah Kolbe ’06 in a letter supporting Lockwood’s nomination. “I am currently studying brachiopod morphometrics in Denmark on a Fulbright Scholarship, and my experiences with Dr. Lockwood were crucial both to getting here and to preparing me for my research here.”