UMM Alumni Association recognizes Lawrence

with annual award for outstanding teachers

Mention daily assignments and some college students might groan—not so for students in Pareena Lawrence’s economics courses. Their appreciative thanks for her unique teaching style, which includes daily assignments at the end of each lecture period, and accolades from her colleagues earned Lawrence the honor of receiving the 2005 UMM Alumni Association Teaching Award.

Lawrence, associate professor of economics and management, holds fast to three basic teaching principles: treat students as active partners in the learning process; communicate high academic and personal expectations for students; model and teach critical thinking skills. The group exercises she assigns to reinforce each day’s lecture materials illustrate these tenets. Problem solving, discussions, simulations and service learning activities provide immediate opportunities to reinforce and to apply concepts presented in lecture.

“While these exercises are instrumental in learning the material,” notes Joshua Hilman ’00, Benfield, Inc. senior analyst, “they also force students to critically think and develop analytical skills. These abilities that were developed in her classes are the driving factors in my success in the work place since graduation.”

During the 2005 Honors and Awards ceremony, Lawrence thanked: “...my WONDERFUL students who have given me a lot of gray hair but who also fill me with hope that the future will be better than today because we are educating them with the right values of the dignity of all human beings and a vision for a just civil society...my terrific colleagues, which includes everyone who makes my job possible, who support and encourage me every single day.”

Lawrence began her UMM career in 1994 after completing a Ph.D. in economics at Purdue University in December 1993. She earned a master of science in economics at Purdue University in 1990 and a master of arts in economics in 1989 at the University of Delhi in Delhi, India, where she also completed her undergraduate degree in 1987.