{"id":38030,"date":"2018-04-27T11:07:35","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T15:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=38030"},"modified":"2018-04-30T14:12:27","modified_gmt":"2018-04-30T18:12:27","slug":"landslide-of-nominations-earns-kris-schmidt-aprils-q101-gold-star-teacher-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/landslide-of-nominations-earns-kris-schmidt-aprils-q101-gold-star-teacher-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Landslide of nominations earns Kris Schmidt April&#8217;s Q101 Gold Star Teacher Award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Professor <a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/faculty-staff\/?show=kls3969\">Kris Schmidt<\/a> usually sticks to his syllabus, but this week, with the clock winding down before final exams, he was forced \u2014 by his appreciative students \u2014 to take a break.<\/p>\n<p>Between lectures on the glucose transports systems and adrenocorticotropic and pancreatic hormones, Schmidt\u2019s human physiology class at Eastern Mennonite University sipped smoothies from Tropical Smoothie Caf\u00e9 in celebration of his Gold Star Teacher Award, an award come to fruition (no pun intended) by the publicity efforts of graduate student Alethea Gnanakan.<\/p>\n<p>She heard about the contest on the radio. Each month, Q101 selects two teachers for recognition from student nominations. Gnanakan secretly rallied her classmates via email to send in nominations. Every single one did.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_38032\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-38032\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/04\/landslide-of-nominations-earns-kris-schmidt-aprils-q101-gold-star-teacher-award\/20180423-kris-schmidt-gold-star-teacher-001-1000px\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-38032\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-38032\" src=\"\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/04\/20180423-Kris-Schmidt-Gold-Star-Teacher-001-1000px-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/04\/20180423-Kris-Schmidt-Gold-Star-Teacher-001-1000px-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/04\/20180423-Kris-Schmidt-Gold-Star-Teacher-001-1000px-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/04\/20180423-Kris-Schmidt-Gold-Star-Teacher-001-1000px.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-38032\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left: Brandy from Q101, Professor Kris Schmidt and graduate student Alethea Gnanakan, who led the nomination efforts among her classmates.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThirty-one of something like 60 nominations this month were for him,\u201d said Harrisonburg Radio Group publicist Nancy Dickerson. \u201cAnd Alethea was calling and texting to check. He is obviously a favorite.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What makes Schmidt such a good professor? One student said he uses a variety of teaching techniques and is always available to answer questions. Serious learning is mixed with moments when he tells a funny story and \u201cwe take time to just laugh.\u201d Schmidt\u2019s mentorship, this student says, has helped him excel in classes and see himself as a \u201chigher caliber student.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Schmidt arrived at EMU in fall 2017 from Goshen College. He teaches biology courses to undergraduate and graduate students\u00a0and directs the undergraduate <a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/pphs\/\">pre-professional health science program<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>His wife, Kathryn, and son Zachary, 5, came to class to join the celebration.<\/p>\n<p>Gnanakan, who aspires to go to medical school, says Schmidt\u2019s support \u2014 she describes him as \u201csuper-invested\u201d \u2014 during her preparations has been invaluable.<\/p>\n<p>He also has a \u201cgenuine gift for teaching,\u201d she added. \u201cI think the secret to his unique teaching ability may be that he is a storyteller. Much of science is a narrative of why different events take place and what happens as a consequence. This is also what makes science a challenging subject because you have to tie many small details together to tell a story of what\u2019s happening in the body.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gnanakan added that Schmidt has an \u201cextraordinary ability to fill the space between questions and answers with understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe nurtures us as a class in dialogue, empowers us to cultivate an inquisitive mind, and then also to pay it forward by teaching others,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Another student shared appreciation for his \u201centhusiasm and energy\u201d in the classroom, but also \u201cthe tremendous amount of time and effort into helping students connect with opportunities outside of class with research projects and travel experiences. \u201cHe\u2019s gone out of his way to help his students find success inside and outside of the classroom,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>After selfies were taken with Q101 radio personality Brandy and he was presented with a $30 gift certificate to the Green Valley Book Fair, Schmidt looked at the clock, clearly calculating the material left to cover before class was over.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOk, you drink your sugary smoothies and I\u2019m gonna get started on this material,\u201d he told his students, and then he paused, ever the teacher. \u201cNow, is the insulin you are producing from this smoothie an exocrine or endocrine secretion?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor Kris Schmidt usually sticks to his syllabus, but this week, with the clock winding down before final exams, he was forced \u2014 by his appreciative students \u2014 to take <a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/landslide-of-nominations-earns-kris-schmidt-aprils-q101-gold-star-teacher-award\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"more-link\">... read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">about Landslide of nominations earns Kris Schmidt April&#8217;s Q101 Gold Star Teacher Award<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5590,17562,12579],"tags":[17637],"feature":[17427,17426,17241,17422],"class_list":["post-38030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology","category-digest","category-pre-professional-health","tag-kristopher-schmidt","feature-emu-home-page-feature","feature-myemu-feature","feature-news-feature","feature-news-landing-page-main-feature"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - 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