By Gloria Gutierrez |Staff Writer|
The prestigious Golden Apple Award was awarded to chemistry professor Dr. Larry Mink by CSUSB President Tomas D. Morales on Wednesday, Jan. 22.
Past winners, faculty and committee members of the Golden Apple Award gathered in the prestigious professor’s office to continue the tradition of marching into the winner’s class to announce the news.
The “ambush” occurred at about 1:30 p.m. in the middle of Mink’s Chemistry 216 lecture.
The entire lecture hall of students and faculty applauded as Morales announced, “It’s my pleasure to share with you that Larry Mink has been awarded this year’s Golden Apple Award, which is the highest teaching award that this university has.”
In the midst of the surprising commotion Mink appeared to be shocked and grateful.
“I am speechless. This is the most flattering presentation that one could receive,” said Mink. “It is extremely meaningful, Thank you very much.”
Mink has been teaching chemistry at CSUSB since 1992. He studied chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and continued his studies at the University of Riverside where he received his masters and doctorate in inorganic chemistry.
He has taught a total of 13 different chemistry courses at CSUSB including large lecture classes, small seminars and labs.
He was named Professor of the Week by the Kappa Delta Sorority Zeta Zeta Chapter at CSUSB.
“Colleagues and students find him to be extremely knowledgeable, approachable, efficient, engaging and caring,” said Morales while announcing the Golden Apple Award to Mink.
Morales noted that statements from students on the Student Opinion of Teaching Effectiveness ratings (SOTE) consisted of extremely positive feedback and high regards of Professor Mink.
“Dr. Mink kept it light, fun and he was very passionate about the subject,” stated a student from the SOTE ratings as cited by the Golden Apple Selection Committee.
A scale from 1-6 that measured teaching effectiveness and overall quality of instruction on SOTE calculated Professor Mink’s overall mean a 5.36.
Joshua Garcia, a student in his chemistry 216 class said that Mink is an accessible teacher and is always willing to help a student before or after class, and during his office hours.
Mink explained in an interview that one of his accomplishments that gave way for this award was the students’ feedback and achievements after taking chemistry classes with him.
He says that teaching takes devoting enough effort in walking his students through chemistry. It’s important to help his students think about how to solve these problems from the ground up.
Mink claims that using overheads and his own hand written notes are some of his own special teaching methods that seem to work for the students.
“I try to go old school because it is something that worked for me and I still look at my longhand notes,” said Mink.
Student Adali Quinonez commented on how he is the first professor in his college career to be very organized.
“We take tests on Fridays and our grades are posted sometimes the same day or by Saturday,” said Quinonez.
Mink’s devotion to teaching chemistry is exhibited by his students’ satisfaction by his classes.
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