Dr. Lawrence (Larry) Lesser has worked since 2004 at The University of Texas at El Paso (a Carnegie R1 research university in the UT System and an HSI by the US-Mexico border), where he’s a Professor in the Mathematical Sciences Dept. in the College of Science as well as a UTEP Distinguished Teaching Professor. He has won state/regional recognitions (e.g., SW-MAA, UT System-ROTA, Piper Professor) within and beyond his discipline, and has international career recognitions from the American Statistical Association: the Waller Distinguished Teaching Career award, an extensive JSE interview about his career, and being elected as an ASA Fellow. Lesser’s research in statistics/mathematics education has yielded state grants, NSF grants, and 142 peer-reviewed papers on topics such as language, student success, ethics, teacher preparation, intuition/misconceptions, mnemonics, and STEAM. His experiences also include high school math department chair, university-wide teaching center director (see paragraph below the photo), statistics and education consultant, state agency staff statistician, journal editor, textbook author, and keynote speaker. His media coverages include NPR and iHEART radio stations, CNN, USA Today, NewsNation, BBC Radio Wales, and Australia’s largest newspaper.
Click HERE for detailed background. Send UTEP-related communications to: Lesser (at) utep.edu
While directing the teaching center (then called CETaL) for 3 years, he: oversaw a $250K budget, full-time program coordinator, and part-time student employees; met regularly with teaching fellows and upper-level administration; presided over (and improved) well-attended annual instructor kickoff retreat, New Instructor Training, annual International Sun Conference on Teaching and Learning, year-end reception, as well as many in-person workshops on various teaching tools, techniques, dynamics, etc.; initiated resources for faculty formative feedback, peer observation, UTEP’s internal process (of selection and refinement) for major teaching awards, a pedagogical expertise database, and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL); initiated or increased interactions with stakeholder groups (grad students, adjunct faculty, post-docs, and library staff) and 11 partner groups, and gave individual consultations on request.
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