BOONE—The inaugural Wayne D. Duncan Appalachian State University Faculty Enrichment and Teaching Fellowship has been awarded to Dr. Rick Klima in the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

The $1,700 award recognizes innovative and successful teaching in Appalachian’s General Education program. It was established in honor of Duncan, who is a past chairman of the Appalachian State University Board of Trustees and a current member of the Appalachian State University Foundation Board of Directors.

According to the awards committee, Klima has received excellent references from fellow faculty members and students, and formal evaluations of his teaching have been consistently superior. The committee was very impressed with the creative and practical ways in which Klima approached teaching his introduction to mathematics classes.

His student references consistently have spoken to the ways in which he makes very complex and sometimes intimidating material accessible, interesting, and applicable to real-world situations.

Klima has distinguished himself among a highly competitive group of applicants by his effective combination of innovation and teaching success, as well as his thoughtful personal statement about the relationship of his discipline to the important work of general education.

Klima earned his PhD in applied mathematics from N.C. State University in 1997. He taught at N.C. State and the State University of New York at Oswego before joining the faculty at Appalachian as an assistant professor in 2002.

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