Sower's Piper Award Makes It Two in a Row For SHSU
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Piper Professor
Victor E. Sower |
A toast is in order, but make it marshmallows instead of
champagne.
Victor E. Sower was selected as one of only 15 college and
university professors in Texas and only the ninth in Sam Houston
State University history to receive the prestigious Minnie
Stevens Piper Award.
Sower, 58, a professor of management in the Department of
Management & Marketing, will receive $5,000 from the Minnie
Stevens Piper Foundation of Texas.
"To be selected as the SHSU nominee for the Piper Professorship
award is a great honor," said Sower. "Actually winning
the award is overwhelming.
"I believe that winning the award is more a testament
to the overall quality of our university than to my qualifications
as an individual faculty member," he said. "We have
many faculty members throughout the University who are deserving
of being named a Piper Professor.
"I am fortunate to work with such an able group from
whom I have learned much and who by their example continually
challenge me to excel in my work."
This is the second consecutive year that an SHSU professor
has received the award. Last year Caroline Crimm, professor
of history, was selected. Past SHSU Piper Professors include
Hazel Floyd (1961), George Killinger (1968), Mary Frances
Park (1981), Fisher Tull (1984), and current faculty members
Ralph Pease (1987), Witold Lukaszewski (1991), and Rolando
V. del Carmen (1998) in addition to Crimm.
Sower's educational background includes a bachelor’s
in chemistry, from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, master’s
in business administration from Auburn University, and Ph.
D. in operations management from the University of North Texas.
In addition to his many teaching accolades from students and
colleagues, he lists 70 books, publications (refereed and
non-refereed), manuals, chapters, cases, presentations, papers
and grants.
He is one of only three SHSU faculty members to receive two
or more of the three excellence awards given by the university
each year. He won the Excellence in Teaching in 1996 and Excellence
in Research in 2001. It would be no surprise if he someday
joins James S. Olson as a winner of all three. His bio also
lists 52 service involvements.
Sower sometimes uses unconventional tactics to get the attention
of students.
About 10 years ago he sensed that one of his classes—probably
before his reputation as an excellent teacher had spread on
campus—was frustrated and angry. The class average on
the first test was unusually low, which the students of course
thought was because the test was too hard. Sower brought a
bag of marshmallows to class, handed one to each student,
and invited them to chunk away.
Then, with white smudges all over him, he gathered up the
marshmallows and fired back. The message—learning is
a two-way street. They were unhappy with him and he was unhappy
with them. He would do his part if they would do theirs.
The marshmallow barrage turned that class around, and Sower
didn’t feel a need to use that tactic again until last
year. This time it improved a first test below-average class
score of 60 into a second test above-average 78.
He also teaches courses in the College of Business Administration
in operations, management, purchasing, and international business.
Before he came to SHSU in 1990 he worked for two divisions
of the Tandy Corporation, with the Ampex Corporation, and
with the U. S. Army Chemical Corps, in which he served as
an officer for two years.
"Dr. Sower posseses a keen intellect, certainly a ready
wit, compassion for the realities of life and perhaps most
importantly, a personal discipline that transcends to his
students in the form of surpassing the status quo," said
former student Pamela J. Zelbst.
"It is simply not acceptable to do less than one's best
if you are fortunate enough to be one of his students."
- END -
SHSU Media Contact: Frank
Krystyniak
May 3, 2005
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