Each fall, a few of Extension's outstanding instructors are honored for their excellent performance in the classroom and their outstanding contributions to Extension's academic programming. Nominations were based on the popularity of their courses and programs, and their student evaluations. These are the Academic Policy Committee's selections for 2007.

Generosity is a word that applies to technology instructor Christine Bouamalay. She makes herself available as a resource to Extension staff and to all current and potential students, and is always happy to share her knowledge and expertise. Those who work with her say her collaborative spirit is “unsurpassed.” For more than 15 years, she has taught the Java curriculum and this past year created a new AJAX course.

• Advanced Java: Language, Internals, and Techniques
• Beginning Java Enterprise Applications with Spring and Hibernate
• Introduction to Data Structures Using Java

Business instructor Kurt Carrasquilla has worked in Extension’s Certificate Program in Personal Financial Planning for 10 years. Term after term, students and colleagues praise his skills as an instructor and his dedication to the program. A graduate of the program sums up Carrasquilla’s teaching style as “patient and thorough.” Outside the classroom, he goes the distance to mentor students and promote and improve the PFP program.

• Investments in Personal Financial Planning: General Principles and Methods

For more than three decades, writing instructor Elizabeth Fishel has provided Extension writing students with top-quality teaching. Fishel is known for the sensitivity and support she shows writers of all levels, and she consistently finds new and interesting authors to build lessons around. An accomplished writing professional herself, Fishel has written four nonfiction books and has contributed to such magazines as Vogue, Redbook, O, and Family Circle.

• Writing for Magazines: A One-Day Seminar

Doug Hawley receives consistently exceptional evaluations from his students in the Project Management program. He is enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the subject matter and makes himself available for help and advice. Colleagues and students alike consider him one of the top instructors at the International Diploma Program and in the entire Business and Management department at Extension.

• International Diploma Program
• Project Quality and Improvement: Advanced Tools for the Project Manager
• Quality Management

For the past 20 years, Dieter Jurkat has taught Math, Self-Paced Math, Statistics, and a new Math Refresher course to hundreds of satisfied UC Berkeley Extension students. He was instrumental in developing Extension’s Self-Paced Math program, and his innovative teaching modules and exams have been used by all instructors for several years.

• Analytic Geometry and Calculus
• Introduction to Statistics
• Mathematics Refresher

Derrick Smith has been teaching math since 2002 in the rigorous Fall Program for Freshmen, Extension’s unique campus partnership that provides Berkeley-equivalent coursework to undergraduates entering Cal in the spring term. Embodying the ideals of an outstanding math teacher, Smith brings great enthusiasm to his work and is always trying to find new ways to make math accessible, relevant, and fun.

• Fall Program for Freshman

Since Beth Stoeckly joined Extension in 1992 as part of the original independent learning effort, she has continually raised the caliber of online learning. From writing incisive, helpful comments that make her students value her teaching “more than the professors who live around the corner” to adding simulations and demonstrations that make Concepts of Physics more interactive, Dr. Stoeckly incorporates well-honed teaching skills to garner excellent evaluations from demanding students.

• Concepts of Physics