Professor Receives 2009 Caterpillar Foundation Faculty Achievement Award

Dennis Schneider, professor of mathematics at Knox College, has been named winner of the 2009 Caterpillar Foundation Faculty Achievement Award. The award is presented annually to a member of the Knox faculty for outstanding achievements in teaching, research, creative activity and service.

S.C. "Sid" Banwart, vice president of the human services division of Caterpillar Inc., presented the award at Knox's 2009 Commencement on June 6. "For his entire 36 years on the faculty, Professor Schneider has maintained high standards of rigor and innovation, as he taught and provided leadership for the program in mathematics," Banwart said.

Schneider is a national leader in the teaching of mathematics using Mathematica, a fully integrated system for doing mathematics by computer. He has won numerous research and curriculum development grants, published college textbooks in linear algebra, and created an extensive library of Mathematica programs for teaching mathematics. Schneider is currently developing a calculus textbook using Mathematica.

Schneider won Knox's 1977 Philip Green Wright-Lombard College Prize for excellence in teaching. In 2007 the Illinois Section of the Mathematical Association of America honored him with its Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics.

A member of the Knox faculty since 1973, Schneider received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 47 states and 48 countries. Knox's 'Old Main' is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.