Stanley Schneider named a finalist for 2015 Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence

A professor of biology, Stanley Schneider is the third finalist for the 2015 Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence to be featured on Inside UNC Charlotte.

This year’s other nominees, who will be profiled on Inside UNC Charlotte prior to the Sept. 18 awards ceremony, are Mohamed Shehab, associate professor of software and information systems, and Beth Whitaker, associate professor of political science and public administration. Read more about the other finalists already featured John Beattie and Moutaz Khouja.

In the classroom, Schneider wants to change the way students think about and live on this earth.

“I want them to experience awe and a sense of privilege and responsibility for living on this planet,” he said.

Schneider’s passion for animal behavior, social insects (especially honey bees) and the evolution of social behavior is infectious, and his students thrive under his guidance.

Martin Klotz, former chair of biological sciences, stated he appreciates Schneider’s “collegiality, commitment, dedication and reliability in all matters of faculty life. His concern for the well-being of students is exemplary, as is his sense of fairness and obligation to give the students the best possible education. His talents and interpersonal skills allow him to stay his very self during interactions with students in and outside the classroom.”

According to Schneider, teaching is a social interaction. It is the contagious enthusiasm of the teacher that captures students’ imagination and helps them dream. Excellent teachers are rigorous, fair and demonstrate respect for students by holding them to high standards of performance by providing clear, organized and relevant lectures.

For Schneider, active participation by students in the learning process is central to inquiry-based learning. To this end, the professor’s living legacy at UNC Charlotte is his excellence in integrating his teaching and research in the classroom. Schneider exposes students to the process of conducting research as he views this as the primary means by which students learn how new information is generated and synthesized into an existing body of knowledge. Since joining the UNC Charlotte faculty in 1985, Schneider has worked with approximately 140 graduate and undergraduate students through individualized instruction, many of whom have gone on to become productive biologists, teachers, researchers and entrepreneurs.

Because of his research on honey bees, Schneider frequently is invited to give talks to beekeeping associations and gardening and birding clubs. Given the worldwide decline of pollinators, he sees these talks as one of the most important public services he can provide. His years of teaching undergraduates have taught him how to engage and motivate audiences, and, therefore, his public speaking is a direct consequence of his teaching experience.

Throughout his career, as principal investigator or co-principal investigator, Schneider received five major grants totaling more than $1 million dedicated to support undergraduate student research participation and training. He was a National Academies Education Fellow in the Life Sciences and attended the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Summer Institute for Scientific Teaching.

Because of his outstanding ability to integrate teaching and research, Schneider was the inaugural recipient of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Award for the Integration of Undergraduate Teaching and Research in 2014.