Sunday, 14 April 2002
Susan McGinley

University Distinguished Professor The Distinguished Professorship was created in 1995 by former President Manuel T. Pacheco to recognize individuals who have made substantial contributions to undergraduate education at the University of Arizona. University Distinguished Professors must demonstrate outstanding commitment to undergraduate education with a minimum of 10 years teaching at the UA, at least 50 percent of which have been undergraduate teaching. Additional criteria includes: a record of creative scholarship; the application of scholarship in the undergraduate classroom; evidence of the highest standards of teaching; evidence of effective advising and mentoring of undergraduates; involvement in undergraduate curriculum innovation within a discipline or in University general education, and evidence of extra-curricular activities or extra-mural service related to the undergraduate experience. Along with the title of University Distinguished Professor, this award carries a $5,000 increase to base salary.

Wanda Howell spent 10 years working as a professional dietitian before she began teaching dietetics in 1986 at the University of Arizona.


As director of the Didactic Program in Dietetics in the department of nutritional sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, she has been able to share her practical knowledge with students who are entering a highly competitive field.


"Our pre-professional program teaches students how to go on to become professional dietitians. The person who teaches it has to have been one," she says. "Students need a 'heads-up' on what professional life is like, and that's what I bring to the teaching arena. Our students leave here knowing what I know."


Tenured in 1990, Howell is a recipient of the Distinguished Professorship, awarded to faculty who have made significant contributions to undergraduate education.


Her efforts are paying off. Compared with a national average of 60 percent, UA graduates from the program have consistently demonstrated a 90 percent placement rate for internships that will nearly guarantee them jobs as registered dietitians. This experience gives them the skills and abilities they need to pass the national registered dietitian exam. As of the year 2002, UA dietetics graduates are yielding a 99 percent pass rate on this exam.


Howell's decade of service at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania focused on nutritional support, where she worked with a team of surgeons, nurses, pharmacists and dietitians to develop feeding regimes for patients who could not physically eat. Since 1986 she has taught UA students this type of complex nutritional care because the demand for it has increased.


Howell's teaching focuses on a case approach, where undergraduate students are actively involved in trying to solve complex nutritional problems through case scenarios and simulations. They learn to read assessment data, and to plan, integrate and evaluate nutritional care.


"With the health-care system we have today, people now come to the hospital only when they are very sick, and most will need advanced nutritional assistance. Our students here are prepared to do that," she says.


When the students leave the UA they know exactly what to expect, and most of the time they are better prepared than their co-interns from other programs, according to Howell, who is above all, a role model for her students.


"It's a matter of pride to me," she says. "I take pride in my program, my students and the profession. I want them to start expecting the best from themselves."