Al-Karim Gangji, a GC doctoral student in urban education, received the 2012 President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching by Adjunct Faculty at Queens College, “in recognition of his commitment and dedication to the education of Queens College students.”
Gangji serves as an adjunct lecturer of physics at Queens College, where he teaches science education. He was enrolled as a doctoral student in physics when he noticed that prospective elementary-school teachers had a phobia about science in general and physics in particular. He was greatly concerned about this and as his experience as an adjunct at Queens College expanded over time he decided to switch his Ph.D. degree to urban education. According to Kenneth Tobin, a member of the doctoral faculty in urban education and Gangji’s mentor, “As an urban educator, Karim teaches high-school physics and, in his role as an adjunct, he has influenced hundreds and possibly thousands of prospective elementary-school teachers by focusing on increasing their competence in physics and their confidence in teaching science. Not surprisingly,” added Tobin, “the focus of his Ph.D. in urban education is on improving the teaching and learning of college-level physics for elementary-school science teachers.”
Gangji is the second doctoral student in urban education to receive this type of recognition. Joseph Nelson, a doctoral candidate due to defend his dissertation in April, received a similar award at Hunter College several years ago.
Ismailimail 