This week marks the home stretch for the 2009 TVO Best Lecturer competition for 2009. If you haven’t voted already, this coming weekend marks the last chance to view and vote for TVO’s Best Lecturer for 2009. The top ten finalists have been announced and have delivered their lectures to a television audience over recent weeks.
Professor Clare Hasenkampf of Biological Sciences at U of T Scarborough has been named to this year’s top ten list of finalists. She speaks on the topic of “Chromosomes Dividing: How it’s Done and Why it Matters.” To view her lecture and those of the other finalists online, visit www.tvo.org and click on “Big Ideas” or click here.
Hasenkampf is the Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning at U of T Scarborough, and is the only finalist from this campus. The University of Toronto has three other finalists, all from St. George campus, including Shawn Lehman (anthropology), Paul Stevens (English) and Doug Richards (physical education and health). The six other finalists from around Ontario are: James Allard (Brock); Anton Lawrence Allahar (UWO); Matthew Bellamy (Carleton); Rod Carley (Canadore College); Darryl Davies (Carleton); and Merv Mosher (York).
Viewers can vote for any or all of the finalists, starting Tuesday March 31 at 12:01 a.m. Voting ends Sunday April 5 at 6 p.m.
To help viewers deliver an informed vote, TVO presents two ways to watch the Top 10 lectures: In their entirety: All the lectures are available on tvo.org/bigideas as of Monday March 30 at 4 pm for people to screen at their leisure.
In a compilation program: TVO presents a special edition featuring five-minute excerpts from each of the Top 10 lectures, airing on TVO on Saturday, April 4 at 4 p.m., and repeated Sunday, April 5 at 4 p.m.
Viewers will be able to judge each professor in three categories: confidence and authority; clarity and coherence; energy and enthusiasm. They can vote for their favourite professor in the following ways:
- online through the Big Ideas website at tvo.org/bigideas
- through a mobile device by texting the word “vote” to mobile short code 333111
- by phone, by calling 1.866.281.3536
The winner of the Big Ideas Best Lecturer Competition will be announced on Saturday, April 11 and Sunday, April 12 at 4 p.m. on TVO’s Big Ideas as well as online at tvo.org/bigideas.
Excerpts from the competition lectures of all ten of this year's Best Lecturer finalists can be viewed online. The voting period for all 10 professors began at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, March 31 and runs until 6 p.m. Sunday, April 5.
The lecture series is sponsored by Meloche Monnex, and the winning lecturer’s institution will receive a $10,000 Meloche Monnex Scholarship.