Each year, IVCC presents the Stephen Charry Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence to one teacher who, according to the college’s web site, “shows outstanding service in teaching, leadership, and contribution to the College and community.”
This year’s award was bestowed to economics instructor Abhijeet Bhattacharya.
Abhijeet, known as Abi to most of his students, has worked at IVCC since 2008 when he worked part time for a year before becoming a full-time instructor during the Spring 2009 semester.
Before IVCC, he had worked as adjunct faculty at both Northern Illinois University and Kishwaukee College.
His time at IVCC has been spent helping out students that require assistance regarding their career goals and properly preparing them for future business courses and for the business world as a whole while also serving on the Teaching and Learning Committee as well as the Diversity Committee at IVCC.
He likes to include technology into his classes when he can as he feels it improves the learning experience and also enjoys initiating classroom discussions to get the students more involved in the courses.
One of his more well-known accomplishments was creating the Economics Student Association (ESA) at IVCC. The group is designed to create an interest in the Economics field and to allow like-minded students to come together and discuss important economic issues.
Abhijeet also organizes field trips for the group to the Federal Reserve and the Chicago Board of Trade, which the group looks forward to every year.
He also frequently presents keynotes at council meetings and occasionally writes articles to newspapers such as NewsTribune and the Ottawa Mywebtimes that deal with the economy.
Abhijeet will join a prestigious list of fellow instructors who have won the award in year’s past.
When asked about his reaction to being selected he said, “It was an honor to have been selected out of an incredibly talent pool of faculty members who were nominated for the award.”
He said he enjoys working with IVCC students and believes that the IVCC community feels much more personal when compared to other colleges since our smaller community allows for students to receive personal attention when they need it and that the faculty staff available has excellent professional and academic credentials.
Winning this award meant quite a lot to him, and Abhijeet feels his teaching skills will continue to improve .
As he said, “I have always felt that teaching is a lifelong learning process. I will continue to update myself on different emerging trends in pedagogy and technologies that will enable me to evolve as a teacher in the future.”