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Sinclair Professor Bob Chaney Named Professor of the Year by CASE

Chaney the Second Sinclair Professor to be So Honored – A First for Ohio's Colleges

November 15, 2013 (DAYTON, OH) – Sinclair College is pleased to announce that mathematics Professor Bob Chaney was honored today as the National Professor of the Year by CASE in Washington, D.C. This is an extremely competitive and prestigious award that is a mark of true distinction, and it is the second time in Sinclair's history that a faculty member has been so honored. Dr. Kathy Rowell, a sociology professor and the current director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, won the award previously in 2005. This makes Sinclair one of the very few colleges in the nation and the only college or university in the State of Ohio to have two national Professor of the Year award winners. Additionally, Sinclair faculty members have previously been awarded the Professor of the Year Award for the State of Ohio.

"I am proud to accept this award on behalf of the entire Sinclair faculty and of the math department where I have so many friends and exceptional colleagues," Professor Chaney said. "I have been very blessed to work in what I call my dream job where I get to work with great students and show them how mathematics makes a real difference in their lives. Thank you so much to my family and to my colleagues at Sinclair for all their support."

Professor Chaney has been a professor of mathematics for Sinclair since 1989.  He is also co-founder and director of the Math Science Technology Center at the college as well as co-director of the non-profit organization Learning with Math Machines.  He currently teaches Business Statistics, Technical Math and Calculus.

Chaney is highly respected as an innovator in the classroom, bringing real world application to math instruction.  Using calculator-controlled robots he co-created with a colleague in the Physics department, he challenges students to command the robots to do various tasks using the math techniques they are learning.  Above and beyond his positive impact on hundreds of students in his career, Chaney has worked with over 1,000 high school and community college faculty around the country who have attended his popular summer workshop Math Machines.

"This award is a sign of what a remarkable professor and person Bob Chaney is and what a great place Sinclair is to teach and learn," Sinclair President Steve Johnson said. "This college is the great place that it is because of the tremendous people that work every day on behalf of the students of our region. Bob's work shows that he is truly a national leader in teaching students in the critical field of mathematics and brings great distinction to the college as a whole. Congratulations to Professor Bob Chaney."

Sinclair is recognized as a local and national leader in delivering high-quality and affordable higher education. One of the oldest and best known community colleges in the nation, Sinclair is also a board member of the prestigious League for Innovation in the Community College. Sinclair offers over 170 accredited degrees and certificates and is the Ohio leader of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supported Completion by Design project and recently received a $12 million grant from the Department of Labor to develop a new model for distance learning in the information technology field.

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