Cheryl Snyder, associate professor of chemistry, is the winner of the 2006 National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development Excellence Award for outstand contributions to teaching and learning. She loves teaching, and especially enjoys the introductory chemistry classes and students who have not had high school chemistry, so she can show them how exciting chemistry can be.

She knows chemistry is a tough course that literally takes learning a new language and new mathematical techniques. It also requires a conceptual point of view to help make the unseen atoms or molecules become real.

The activities in her classroom tend to be hands-on learning done in a group. She constantly changes her presentations, and says, “I fell in love with watching minds click and establishing interactions with students.”