| Leischucks
Endow Major New Awards for Top Teachers Auburn has launched a new presidential awards program to recognize and reward the university’s best teachers through a major endowment from two emeritus senior administrators. Later this year, interim President Ed Richardson will present the inaugural Gerald and Emily Leischuck Endowed Presidential Awards for Excellence in Teaching, which include a $10,000 stipend with each award. The annual awards will go to two full-time, tenured faculty members who have demonstrated effective and innovative teaching methods and a continuing commitment to student success through advising and mentoring inside and outside the classroom. At least one award will recognize undergraduate teaching. “Auburn University is extremely grateful to Gerald and Emily Leischuck for endowing this awards program for us to provide a much higher degree of recognition to teaching excellence,” said Richardson. “Gerald and Emily demonstrated a deep and abiding love for the university during their many years of service under six Auburn presidents, and they continue to put the best interests of the university first in all that they do,” Richardson added. “With this endowment, they will continue to have a very positive influence on this university, the faculty and students for generations to come.” Although the Leischucks had professional careers in administration at Auburn, both are former teachers who came to AU in pursuit of graduate degrees in education. Emily Leischuck taught in Prattville and Auburn City Schools, and Gerald Leischuck taught in Colorado and California public schools. Gerald Leischuck said the endowment is an outgrowth of an early and ongoing interest in the quality of teaching in general and especially for AU students. “Auburn’s legacy has always been high-quality teaching, especially undergraduate teaching,” he said. “We see the presidential awards as a way to emphasize instructional excellence, enhance the teaching of students and reward faculty for the outstanding job that they do.” Emily Leischuck added, “We want to do our part to ensure that students will continue to receive the high quality of instruction that they need and deserve and that we are all so proud of at Auburn.” At AU, Emily Leischuck earned a master’s degree from the College of Education and served nine years in student affairs programs, where she was Panhellenic advisor and assistant to the dean of women, followed by 12 years in the Office of the President. During those years, she served as assistant to the AU president and the Board of Trustees, retiring in 1995 with emeritus status. Long supportive of student organizations and a frequent leader in community-service activities, she was a 1996 recipient of AU’s Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award for Humanitarian Leadership. In recognition of her efforts on behalf of Auburn students and the entire Auburn family, the university named a residence hall, Emily Reaves Leischuck Hall, in her honor in 1998. Gerald Leischuck began his 35-year Auburn career in 1962 as a graduate assistant in the College of Education. Shortly after earning an Ed.D. in educational leadership in 1964, he joined the staff of what is now Institutional Research and Assessment. He served as executive director of that office from 1966-89 and as secretary to the Board of Trustees from 1989-97. From 1992 until retiring to emeritus status in 1997, he also served as executive assistant to the president. After retirement, he returned for two years as a consultant to the Board of Trustees. He also served on the Auburn City Board of Education from 1977-87 and was its president from 1980-85. In 2000, AU presented an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree to Gerald Leischuck in recognition of his career achievements and service to the university. The presidential awards are the second set of awards for quality of teaching at AU named for the Auburn couple. The top two teaching awards in the College of Education are partially funded by the Leischucks; those awards go annually to one faculty member each for undergraduate teaching and for graduate instruction. The Leischucks have also endowed the Leischuck- Reaves Endowment for Scholarships at Auburn in honor of their parents, Claude and Emily Tyson Reaves and Steve and Nellie Leischuck. Also, the couple has established or provided for scholarship programs at Huntingdon College, Birmingham-Southern College and the University of Northern Colorado. |
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