Guffey takes top accolade

The professor can mean the difference between a scary semester in Statistics 190 and an inspiring one.

Professor of mathematics James Guffey was named the Educator aof the Year at the celebratory banquet Tuesday. Guffey has been an instructor at Truman for 20 years, nominated for the award eight times and selected as a finalist six times. Guffey earned a master's in applied mathematics and a doctorate in mathematics with emphasis on statistics at the University of Missouri-Rolla.

Guffey has created a reputation among his students of making statistics fun. He said one of the ways he achieves this feat is by collecting data from his students, such as GPA, height and shoe size. Guffey said that this week, students were going to find out whether they get less sleep late in the semester as compared to the beginning of the semester.

"By gathering various kinds of data on my students, I'm actually able to work in the data about them into the class," he said. "You need data for an example anyways, [so] why not make it about them?"

Senior Elizabeth Durst said she added a statistics methods minor to her business administration degree because of Guffey. She said her first class with him was Statistics 190.

"My roommate and I did it together," Durst said." We were so in love with the class, and all my friends who were in stats classes were like, 'Oh my God, ... it's horrible.'"

She said the fact that she was enjoying the class was a good sign. Durst is one of several students who nominated Guffey for the award.

"He puts you, the college student, into the class," she said. "You learn stuff about yourself or about things you do in life and mix it with stats, which can be kind of boring and dry. It makes it a lot more interesting."

Senior Brittany Stevens said Guffey's sense of humor and personality added to the class.

"On the first day of class, I was kind of expecting it to be boring," Stevens said. "And he comes into the class and writes on the board, 'If I had one day left to live, I would spend it in statistics class ... it would make the day seem that much longer."

Stevens said she just finished her statistics methods minor, which Guffey influenced her to look into because he made Statistics 190 so enjoyable.

"I was scared on the first day and thrilled every other day after that," Stevens said.

Throughout the semester, Guffey coins words and phrases, such as making a "talko" instead of a typo and ''crystal clear bordering on inspirational." It's those types of quirks that bring students back for additional courses with Guffey.

Stevens also nominated Guffey for Educator of the Year. She said she was hoping he would win this year because she would not be able to nominate him again after graduating.

"I know that going into his office, I've seen his previous nominations from previous years, and I can't help but think, 'How has he not gotten this award already?'" Stevens said.

Students submitted online nominations this year for 92 instructors. Professors then had to accept the nominations and submit course syllabi and an essay to the Educator of the Year committee. Committee members are students from Student Senate, the Pershing Society and Phi Kappa Phi. The list of nominees was whittled from 34 professors to 12 semifinalists. The list then was narrowed down to six finalists.

University President Barbara Dixon said the nominating process is special because the decision is entirely up to the student committee.

"I'm really impressed that the students go to such lengths that they do to try to honor the faculty," Dixon said.

Senior Greg Wisa, Educator of the Year committee member, said it is gratifying having professors submit essays to members to read and consider.

"We had to go through and read 34 essays on different professors and figure out 12 of them that were better than the rest," Wisa said.

Guffey also was awarded the Professional Leader in Education by the Rotary Club of Kirksville two years ago and recently was nominated for a Golden Apple award.