Dr. Dipendra C. Sengupta named Teacher of the Year
Kesha Williams
April 26, 2005The UNC Board of Governors recently selected Dr. Dipendra C. Sengupta, a mathematics professor at Elizabeth City State University, as the local recipient of the 11th annual Award for Excellence in Teaching. Each year, the board selects some of its most outstanding faculty to receive the Awards for Excellence in Teaching. During a recognition luncheon to be held in conjunction with the Board’s May meeting, a faculty member from each UNC campus will receive a commemorative bronze medallion and a $7,500 cash prize. Dipendra C. Sengupta, professor of mathematics at Elizabeth City State University, will be among those honored. The 16 recipients, representing an array of academic disciplines, were nominated by special committees on their home campuses and selected by the Board of Governors Committee on Personnel and Tenure, chaired by John W. Davis III of Winston-Salem. The awards will be presented by UNC President Molly Corbett Broad and Board of Governors Chairman J. Bradley Wilson of Cary. After receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics from the University of Kalyani in India, Sengupta received his M.A. and Ph.D. in mathematics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and arrived at ECSU in 1984. In addition to his support for students in mathematics courses, Sengupta involves students in his research. He received a NASA Faculty Research Award that provided scholarships for four students who were chosen to present their projects at the Council for Undergraduate Research’s annual "Posters on Capitol Hill" in 2001. That same year, Sengupta received a prestigious NASA Administrator’s Fellowship, which enabled him to work at the NASA Glenn Research Center and in the mathematics department at NC State University, conducting research on chaos theory. He was named as one of the departmental Teachers of the Year at ECSU during the academic years of 1995-1996 and 2003-2004. Established by the Board of Governors in April 1994 to underscore the importance of teaching and to reward good teaching across the University, the awards are given annually to a tenured faculty member from each UNC campus. Winners must have taught at their present institutions at least seven years. No one may receive the award more than once. The oldest public university in America, the University of North Carolina today encompasses all 16 of North Carolina’s public institutions that grant baccalaureate degrees and enrolls nearly 190,000 students. UNC campuses support a broad array of distinguished liberal-arts programs, two medical schools and one teaching hospital, two law schools, a veterinary school, a school of pharmacy, ten nursing programs, 15 schools of education, three schools of engineering, and a specialized school for performing artists. Also under the University umbrella are the UNC Center for Public Television with its 11-station statewide broadcast network, and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, the nation’s first public residential high school for gifted students.