Professor Steve Beaudoin was recently named the 2017 recipient of the A.A. Potter Best Teacher Award in the College of Engineering at Purdue. This award honors faculty members for outstanding teaching performance in all phases of the College of Engineering’s undergraduate instruction on the West Lafayette campus. A.A. Potter Award recipients are nominated by their respective schools based on recommendations from undergraduate students. Students also are part of the selection committee that determines the final recipient of the award, making the Potter Award one truly representative of student opinion.

Professor Beaudoin is known as a passionate, effective teacher of undergraduates. He recognizes that excellent teaching involves not only presenting the right content correctly, but also mentoring and supporting students to rise to new challenges. His teaching philosophy stresses that teaching and learning occur when professors teach the ‘whole student’. This means addressing all the challenges that students encounter as they progress through the university, including challenges in scholarship, relationships, finances, organization and time-management, physical and psychological health, and challenges to students’ values and beliefs. The professor must help the students develop the background, sensitivity, interpersonal skills, perspective, and leadership skills that will allow them to succeed as professionals and as citizens in a global community.

Professor Beaudoin earned a PhD from the North Carolina State University in 1995 and joined the Purdue faculty in 2003.