History's James Andrews honored with two Iowa State teaching awards

James Andrews, associate professor of history, has been named the recipient of two Iowa State University teaching awards recently.

Andrews was honored on Monday, Sept. 11, at the ISU fall convocation with the Iowa State University Award for Outstanding Achievement in Teaching. This award recognizes a tenured faculty member for outstanding teaching performance over an extended period of time. A $1,500 award is granted.

Just last week Andrews was recognized by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as one of two recipients of the Cassling Family Faculty Award. The $5000 award recognizes and rewards outstanding faculty in LAS either for outstanding teaching performance over an extended period of time at Iowa State or early achievement in teaching.

The awards were established by Randal and Lori Cassling of Omaha, Neb, in honor of Randal's parents, Robert and Rita Lenore Dunn Cassling of Omaha, Neb. Robert Cassling is a 1956 graduate of Iowa State while Rita attended Iowa State and was a former Homecoming queen.

Andrews is an award-winning faculty member and teacher whose student evaluations are consistently among the highest in the department. And among undergraduate and graduate students in the courses he teaches in his area of specialization -- Russian history -- they consistently are at or near perfection on the scale of 5.0.

He is co-director of the graduate Ph.D. program and Center for Historical Studies of Technology and Science, and former director of Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies in the history department. He has supervised 20 graduate students in his eight years at Iowa State, and his scholarly contributions include two books, seven articles, 51 papers and several book contributions and reviews.