To much of my surprise, I received the Best Professor 2014 award of Ajou University. It was publicly announced during the annual workshop for Ajou University professors on August 20-21, 2015. The criteria for this award is mostly based on pedagogical merits (e.g., students’ anonymous ratings, passion, innovative teaching style, dedication to improving education). As much as I feel honored to receive the award, students’ ratings would not have been so high without excellent work of my assistants who persevered even during the most stressful periods. So thank you Jungryul, Joonas, Arslan, Soowoong, Rizwan, Kwanhong and Teddy (and all the assistants before 2014 who helped to improve my courses)!
Here is a translated excerpt from the original announcement (in Korean) and some photos:
“Teemu H. Laine, Professor at the Department of Information and Computer Engineering, received the Best Professor award, and Jeong Ui Jin (Mathematics), Yu Seon Mu (Cultural Studies), Park Young Jun (Economics), Kim Hyung Kyu (Dasan University College), Lee So Hyun (Dasan University College) received the Excellent Achievement award.”
N.B. Actually, there is no official English translation to the Korean name of the award (교육우수 교수 부문에서), so we took the liberty of translating it as the “Best Professor” award because it is the main award in the education category for professors.