2021 Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award
Judith E. Canner, Ph.D.
California State University, Monterey Bay
Professor, Mathematics and Statistics
I want all my students to know the joy of using data to serve others, in their field and in their community. To use data for good restores some beauty to our broken world. In my classroom, I strive to create an environment of inquiry…a place to belong, engage, support others and to be supported.'
Major Accomplishments:
- Principal investigator of NIH Enhancing Diversity in Biomedical Data Science Award: Innovative Research Education and Articulation in the Preparation of Underrepresented and First- Generation Students for Careers in Biomedical Big Data Science.
- CSU Faculty Innovation and Leadership Award 2018 recipient for work in redesigning CSU Monterey Bay’s mathematics and statistics department in response to Executive Order 1110.
- Awarded the Dex Whittinghill Award for the best contributed paper on statistics education at the Joint Mathematics Meetings.
Dr. Judith Canner is widely known and respected for her extraordinary commitment to student learning. One of her most significant contributions was her leadership in redesigning first-year mathematics courses in response to Executive Order 1110. The most innovative aspect of this work was an intentional alignment of student course learning outcomes, assignments, and pedagogy with program and institutional learning outcomes and the integration of frameworks and approaches to improve student outcomes, particularly for underrepresented students.
Canner also has helped students in all disciplines develop the quantitative reasoning (QR) skills they need to be successful. She was named the university’s first QR Assessment Coordinator in 2014 and, working with faculty from across the university, developed a QR criteria and expansive definition that could be applied across disciplines. Her work is particularly timely in its focus on decreasing equity gaps through an innovative redesign of first-year mathematics courses, effective mentoring and creating internship opportunities and other pathways to career and graduate school. Her efforts have been shared and leveraged among multiple CSU campuses.
She has garnered the respect and gratitude of her students as well. Course evaluations credit Canner as “why I enjoy statistics so much”, that her “own passion was infectious and gets other students eager to learn” and “having her tell me that she believed in me has made a lasting impact on my life.” She’s mentored a number of students who participated in the university’s nationally recognized Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center. Her numerous presentations and publications demonstrate her service to translating teaching-and-learning research into practice. Examples include “Enhancing Diversity in Biomedical Data Science” published in Ethnicity and Disease and “Redefining Success: A multifaceted approach to assessing departmental change in first year mathematics/statistics” soon to be published in MMA Notes Volume on Diverse and Inclusive Issues in Calculus.
Canner earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Shippensburg University and her doctorate in biomathematics and zoology from North Carolina State University.