Top graduate students receive honors

Ryan Lewis wants to expand a student’s world through music. Kate Scott wants to make difficult math concepts easy for students to understand.

Lewis’ success at bringing music to life and Scott’s passion for making math less complicated were recognized during an awards ceremony recently at the University of South Carolina’s Graduate Student Day.

Lewis and Scott received the Outstanding Teaching Award for Graduate Assistants. Given by the USC Educational Foundation, one award is for teaching in humanities, social sciences, education and related professional programs, and one is teaching in science, math and related professional programs.

The competition is rigorous Dr. Stan Dubinsky of the university’s Graduate School said.

“The award recognizes a graduate assistant’s breadth of teaching experience, student evaluations, their teaching philosophy and their ability to make a difficult topic accessible to students,” he said. “They are mentors and teaching leaders.”

Scott, who is pursuing a doctoral degree in mathematics, said she has loved math from childhood.

“Math is something that is always supposed to make sense,” said Scott, whose parents retired to Augusta, Ga., after the family traveled with her father’s career in the Navy. “Every answer has a good reason.”

Still, she understands that math is confusing to many and unfathomable to others.

“A professor once told me that no matter what level, there is always an easy way to look at difficult concepts,” she said. “I like taking abstract and difficult concepts and making them easy to understand for my students”

Because she has chosen a career in which there is a national shortage of women, Scott also has formed a “ladies tea” group with other women who are pursuing math degrees. The group has about 10 members who meet weekly at Adrianna’s in Five Points to discuss their chosen profession and its challenges.

“Math intimidates many women,” said Scott, who earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of California at San Diego and master’s degree from the University of South Carolina. “But don’t let anyone tell you that girls can’t do math. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Those of us who have come up through the ranks of this profession have to get out there and tell women, ‘You can do it.’ ”

Scott is scheduled to graduate in May 2009 and plans to pursue a career in teaching at the college level.

Lewis, who is pursuing a doctoral degree in percussion performance and teaching, also wants to teach at a college or university and plans to specialize in percussion. He would like to teach introductory courses in world music, music appreciation and music history both to students of music and to non-music students.

Lewis, who is from Charleston, earned a bachelor’s degree from Furman University and a master’s degree in music performance from Florida State University, where he taught steel-drum band music for three years. During that time, he also was an elementary-school music teacher.

“I want to expand the students’ world through music, especially non-music students,” said Lewis, who chose the University of South Carolina because of the marimba expertise of Scott Herring. “I see teaching as a chance to develop an appreciation for all music.”

His teaching experience already has had success.

“It is so exciting when students whom I’ve taught come up to me years later and tell me that they understand music better, look at it differently, understand the finer points of an opera or an African drum circle performance,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘I get it now,’ which is so gratifying.”

Other awards presented at the ceremony are at

http://www.gradschool.sc.edu/GSD/2008.AwardsCeremonyProgram.pdf.

Students who received awards in the day’s poster presentation and performance competitions: