Outstanding Faculty Teacher Award

This is an alternating award given every 3 years to a faculty member who has excelled in teaching, research, or advisory service.

This year’s recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Teacher Award is Robert J. Latour.

We recognize Rob for his deep and lasting commitment to our students and educational mission. Rob regularly teaches Fisheries Population Dynamics and has taught the statistics core course 5 times in the last decade. Students appreciate his enthusiasm, humor, and deep understanding of the material. He is a gifted teacher with an enviable ability to make a complex concept easy to understand. His courses are popular because he knows how to make a subject interesting, relevant, and accessible.

Rob’s classroom achievements are paralleled by excellence in student advising. To date, he has advised or co-advised 9 Master’s and 11 doctoral students and served on graduate committees for 33 others. He works tirelessly to ensure that students are well-positioned to pursue all opportunities and enjoy success regardless of career path. His students consistently receive funding and awards, publish in high-quality journals, and attain competitive jobs when they graduate. It’s not uncommon to see Rob help a student from outside Fisheries to develop a quantitative approach to proposed research, or a thoughtful analytical solution to a long-standing problem. His admirable publication record with students testifies to the meaningful guidance he provides to all who seek his assistance.

By dovetailing research, fisheries-management expertise, and strong quantitative skills, Rob provides fertile education experiences for the next generation of fisheries scientists, as well as those specializing in other areas. He has excelled in the classroom, received high accolades for his research and professional guidance, and distinguished himself as a dedicated and talented mentor. He is most highly deserving of the VIMS/SMS Outstanding Teacher Award.