Rabbi Eleanor Steinman

ME and AUNT L

Though it may embarrass her a great deal, you should all know that my AUNT L is amazing!

This was written about her in a local Austin, TX paper. I am removing her name because she wouldn’t want me to publicize it.

School of Human Ecology Faculty Chosen for Faculty Service Award

SOMEONE NOT AUNT L and AUNT L recently received a strange phone call from David Laude. On the surface, the phone call was not entirely suspicious—it was an invitation to Dean Laude’s office presumably to discuss undergraduate education. Invitations to such meetings are commonplace in the work lives of University of Texas at Austin faculty.This invitation, however,  was special. Upon arrival at Dean Laude’s office in the Will C. Hogg building, AUNT L and NOT AUNT L along with two other College of Natural Sciences(CNS) faculty were escorted across the street to Welch Hall where they were guests of honor at a celebratory breakfast. Upon arrival, NOT AUNT L and AUNT L and their  colleagues discovered that they  had been nominated for the Natural Sciences Council  (NSC)  Faculty  Service Award for 2011. At the breakfast,  NOT AUNT L and AUNT L heard the reasons why they had been chosen to receive the award from the students who had nominated them for the accolade.

AUNT L, senior lecturer in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, in just the three years–from fall of 2007 to the spring of 2010–AUNT L has taught nearly 3,000 undergraduate students—an astounding number. AUNT L regularly teaches the large lecture-based course, Fundamentals of Nutrition (NTR 306), an entry-level Nutritional Sciences course serving majors and non-majors alike. Courses like NTR 306 typically enroll in excess of 300 students per semester, and Steinman often teaches two sections of NTR 306 each spring semester. AUNT L also regularly teaches Nutrition through the Life Cycle (NTR 315); so regularly, in fact, that she has, in the past three years, taught 18 sections of these courses.Just as she has dedicated herself to building community in her classrooms, AUNT L is working to build and strengthen community within the university and beyond, bringing her message about better health through better nutrition to the children of Austin. Whether it is writing a grant to establish the Healthy Families Initiative Project, a program that engages students and families through school-based health activities, including the creation of a community cookbook, creation of sustainable student-tended gardens, and development of a nutrition education program at the University of Texas Elementary School or giving of her personal time to young people through University out-reach programs like Explore UT, AUNT L is ensuring that her future students will be happy and healthy when they arrive on campus as freshmen.

NICE STUDENT, nutritional sciences junior and vice president of the NSC, explains her choice to nominate AUNT L,  “I have been able to see that she is respected both by University of Texas students and  by  the community. She has helped impact the lives of children by improving their eating choices and has made a difference in the lives of students she teaches.” NICE STUDENT also points to AUNT L’s work with the Healthy Families Initiative and with the Garden to Table Project both at the University of Texas Elementary School, “By educating children about nutrition, physical activity, and vegetable consumption, she has made a difference in the lives of these students”

Told you. My AUNT L. Totally amazing. And please remember that photo was taken in the 80s.