"Creativity, zany humor and utter fascination with the natural world combine in Tom Vogelmann to yield a teaching style that is unique and powerful, a style that leads students to choose his courses and thrive in them. Equally critical to Vogelmann's success is that he remains a kid at heart." He knows just the sorts of things that are funny to a 20-year-old." This is the tip of the iceberg of descriptions of Plant Biology Professor Tom Vogelmann from his colleagues in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Their comments formed a thick nomination packet that earned him the Joseph E. Carrigan Teaching Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at Honors Day ceremonies on April 17. Jonathan Leonard, who won the award in 2006, presented it to Vogelmann, its 28th recipient. Leonard delivered many of the remarks collected in this story. Plant Biology Department Chair David Barrington, who penned the comment that opens this tale, also said, in nominating Vogelmann, that his "versatility is legendary especially among faculty. He has a reputation for being able to teach anything well, from how plants function to how the human senses operate, from Pleistocene climate change to the ethnobotany of the potato." By adding dashes of his own interests in farming, plants, glacial geology, Native American artifacts, music and skiing, he is able to make large classes interesting, even to nonmajors. Regularly he has taught the largest introductory biology classes — often 249 students. Catherine Paris, who co-taught the introductory course "Green World" with Vogelmann, added: "economics majors, French majors, music students … many of them come here with the same kind of enthusiasm they would bring to a dentist's office." And yet, as the course unfolds, "he has a marvelous ability to 'read' his audience: when he sees the eyes glazing ... he'll change gears, doing something unexpected to draw them back in," she reported. Students spread the stories on campus of how, during a lecture on economically important members of the nightshade family, Vogelmann tossed a slightly soiled homegrown potato into the audience, encouraging students to take a bite if they were hungry. And during a lecture on DNA mutation, he bobbed about the aisles with a Geiger counter clicking frantically; the students got the message loud and clear: we are exposed to radiation everywhere. In one class questionnaire he asked students to name their favorite plant, then during the next class used a PowerPoint featuring images of those plants to introduce important topics in plant physiology, reports Jeanne Harris, who also co-taught with Vogelmann. The result: Tom Vogelmann draws new students into CALS majors and keeps our College's reputation high among our students and colleagues. "Tom's trademark humor might be mere gimmick, did he not use it to deliver the highest quality information, presented clearly, logically and accessibly. He makes it fun, but he demands commitment from his students, and most deliver," says Paris. Vogelmann continued teaching the mega-courses, even when he was chair. And now that he is CALS dean, he will still guest lecture, he so relishes the chance to be with students. Team teaching and guest lecturing have a side benefit; as faculty members watch him in action they too develop as teachers. Many colleagues point out that Vogelmann sets the standard in quality of teaching, number of students and level of courses. It's no accident that the department he has led, plant biology, boasts three Carrigan Award recipients and two Kroepsch-Maurice Award recipients. And Tom Vogelmann brings to the classroom something else few can claim. He is a native Vermonter and University of Vermont alum. Who else could enter a classroom and say that some 35 years earlier he sat in that very lecture hall as a College of Agriculture and Life Sciences bioscience major? Since his return to CALS as chair of plant biology in 2002, Vogelmann has taught nine different courses, advised seven graduate and three postdoctoral students and a score of undergraduate plant biology majors. As a plant physiologist with expertise in photosynthesis, leaf-structure and function and plant adaptations to the environment, Tom Vogelmann has published in nearly 80 peer-reviewed journals and contributed to a number of books. He has brought in more than $700,000 in grants just since arriving at UVM. Whether he's teaching Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Plant Evolution to seven students with Jane Molofsky or Principles of Biology to 246 students with Linden Higgins, Tom Vogelmann's teaching philosophy is simple. He distills it to this: "The goal: empowerment with knowledge. The mechanics: be sensitive to your audience. The wish: that students learn a new way to think about the connections within science and those between science and other fields." Vogelmann says, "almost everything in the world has some connection to science — connections that are all around us, that have determined history and that determine our daily lives." Former University of Vermont provost, now CALS advisor John Bramley calls Vogelmann "a champion of undergraduate students who is helping create and support a climate for students and faculty that makes CALS second to none," One former student disagrees, saying it is not the research or the lessons of BCOR 11 that distinguish Professor Thomas Vogelmann. David Steakley '07, is a graduate student of molecular and cell biology at the University of California-Berkeley who in April received a pre-doctoral fellowship from the National Science Foundation. He credits Tom Vogelmann for his success in the pursuit of this scientific career. And Steakley has the last word: "What separates Dr. Vogelmann from the many other outstanding professors at the University of Vermont is not his captivating and skilled instruction in the classroom. It is the depth in which he cared for and inspired his students." CAPTION Award-winning lecturer Jonathan Leonard, left, remarks on the accomplishments of Plant Biology Professor Tom Vogelmann as he is about to receive the Joseph E. Carrigan Teaching Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the College's Honors Day ceremonies on April 17. ~Cheryl Dorschner photo