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Jeffery R. Williams, professor of business strategy, has been awarded the 2012 George Leland Bach Award for Excellence in the Classroom.  The award is named for “Lee” Bach, the business school’s founding dean, who’s vision of rigor, research and academic respectability dramatically changed American business education. Formerly known as the Leland Bach Teaching Award, the annual distinction recognizes a faculty member at the Tepper School of Business for outstanding classroom instruction, as chosen by the graduating MBA class. First awarded in 1976, the winners comprise a long list of outstanding educators and pioneers in business education and research.  Winners are ineligible from being selected receive the award again for a period of five year., Nonetheless, this is professor Williams’s third such award, tying him with dean Robert Dammon for the most among Tepper School faculty.

Brandy Aven, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior & Theory, has earned distinction as the 2012 Gerald L. Thompson Excellence in Teaching Award winner.   The award is named for the late Gerald Thompson, who was the IBM professor of systems and operations research at the Carnegie Mellon Graduate School of Industrial Administration, now known as the Tepper School of Business. Thompson, who is fondly remembered as a highly popular instructor, dedicated his career to teaching and research aimed at finding the best way to do things. The honor is bestowed annually for outstanding classroom instruction in business as selected by undergraduate business students and the Undergraduate Business Program Administration.

Laurence Ales, the Frank A. and Helen E. Risch Faculty Development Professorship in Business and assistant professor of economics, has received the 2012 Richard Cyert Excellence in Teaching Award. The award is named for “Dick” Cyert, one of the original developers of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration, now known as the Tepper School of Business, who became the school’s second dean and also served as Carnegie Mellon University’s president from 1972-1990. The recognition is bestowed annually to a faculty member by economics students and the Undergraduate Economics Program Administration for outstanding pedagogy in economics courses.

Additional information about George Leland Bach and Richard Cyert is available on the Tepper School’s Wall of Fame Page.  

About the Tepper School of Business - Founded in 1949, the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University (www.tepper.cmu.edu) is a pioneer in the field of management science and analytical-decision making. The school’s notable contributions to the intellectual community include eight Nobel laureates. The school is among those institutions with the highest rate of academic citations in the fields of finance, operations research, organizational behavior and production/operations. The academic offerings of the Tepper School include undergraduate studies in business and economics, graduate studies in business administration and financial engineering, and doctoral studies.