Professor at Central Michigan University Carl Lee was recognized as one of three state recipients of the Michigan Distinguished Professor of the Year award.
This award recognizes the outstanding contributions and dedication of faculty at Michigan’s 15 public universities to the education of undergraduate students.
The Michigan Association of State Universities Academic Affairs Committee will recognize nominees and recipients of this annual award on April 15 during a luncheon at the Lansing Center. The other two winners are Professor Vashti Sawtelle of Michigan State University and Professor Sandra Gonzales of Wayne State University.
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“Professor Lee is among the nominees who continue to bring new knowledge and innovations in teaching and learning to public universities in Michigan,” said Dr. Daniel J. Hurley, CEO of the Michigan Association of State Universities. . “These faculty have the utmost dedication to their students, ensuring they are well prepared to make a significant impact in their careers and in their communities.”
Dr. Carl Lee is founding chair and professor of the Department of Statistics, Actuarial Science, and Data Science at Central Michigan University, where he taught for more than 38 years and developed undergraduate and graduate programs and taught courses ranging from introductory to Ph.D. level course. Dr. Lee earned his BS in Agronomy from National Taiwan University, his MS in Mathematics from West Florida State University, and his Ph.D. in statistics at Iowa State University.
He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and a recipient of the Mathematical Association of America’s (MAA) Haimo Distinguished Teaching of Mathematics Award, MAA’s Michigan Chapter Distinguished Teaching Award, CMU’s University Distinguished Service Award , and many other honors.
Dr. Lee’s dedication to undergraduate teaching goes beyond his relationships with students in the classroom. He has always been innovative in his approach to pedagogy, emphasizing projects, hands-on activities, cooperative learning and exercises, or what he calls a PACE model. He is the author of a wide range of scientific articles on the subject of teaching and learning in the field of statistics. Since statistics is considered by many students to be among the most difficult subjects, this motivates Dr. Lee’s interest in conducting research to study how students learn quantitative concepts, misconceptions and difficulties encountered, as well as the effect of technology on learning. Of his 150 publications, 42 articles are related to teaching and student learning.
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Dr. Lee has also made substantial contributions to the teaching of statistics at CMU, developing statistics programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels and nationally through his participation in statistical education initiatives. ASA Undergraduate Studies and the National Consortium to Advance Undergraduate Statistical Education. At CMU, he helped design the undergraduate program in Statistics and Actuarial Sciences and also initiated and developed a graduate certificate program in Data Mining, the MS in Applied Statistics and Analytics, and completely revised the doctoral program. Over the past two years, Dr. Lee has worked tirelessly with colleagues across the university to create the most interdisciplinary data science program on campus.
The monumental task was to coordinate a new degree and major with colleagues from four colleges and nine university departments, continuing to inspire fellow CMU faculty and administrators.
“Throughout his career, Dr. Carl Lee has consistently demonstrated his dedication to students and a high quality undergraduate education through his engaging classroom approach, innovative use of pedagogy, high quality scholarship in teaching and learning of statistics, and his contributions to curriculum development and curriculum reform at CMU and in his professional field,” said Richard Rothaus, executive vice president and acting provost of Central Michigan University.
