Lowery Bretz receives Knox teaching award

Stacey Lowery Bretz, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, was awarded the E. Philips Knox Teaching Award at Miami University’s fall commencement Dec. 18.

The $3,000 award was established by E. Philips Knox (Miami ’68) to recognize creative, innovative and engaging teaching methods at the undergraduate level. Miami’s Center for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching, and University Assessment selected Lowery Bretz for the honor.

Lowery Bretz, whose research focuses on chemistry education, has designed new courses in both chemistry and chemistry education. She is committed to teaching students to “learn how to learn” and to understand how chemistry impacts their daily lives as citizens and consumers. She teaches undergraduates from one-on-one mentoring in the laboratory to large lecture classes, including general chemistry (CHM 141). She has designed and taught a new section, CHM 141.R, to help reduce attrition from CHM 141 and improve retention into CHM 142.

At the graduate student level, she teaches courses designed to “influence these future faculty and how they will shape learning experiences for undergraduates as faculty one day.”

Lowery Bretz joined Miami’s faculty in 2005. She was previously associate professor of chemistry at Youngstown State University, where she received the Distinguished Professor of Teaching and of Research awards, and the Northeast Ohio Council of Higher Education Excellence in Education Award.