JOHNSON CITY (Aug. 21, 2020) – East Tennessee State University presented the 2020 Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching to Dr. Brooks Pond, professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
The award was presented at the annual Faculty Convocation, which was delivered in a virtual format due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pond joined East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy as a founding faculty member in 2007. Over the past 13 years at ETSU, she has participated in didactic teaching of students within the College of Pharmacy and the biomedical science Ph.D. program.
Pond’s teaching accomplishments have been recognized by both her students and her peers. For more than a decade, she has instructed and coordinated the Human Physiology course, a major foundational course for pharmacy students. In addition, Pond teaches pharmacology associated with several courses in the second and third years of the pharmacy curriculum. She has been selected four times as the Gatton College of Pharmacy Teacher of the Year and was recognized by her college peers when she was named Outstanding Teacher in 2015.
Each year, the Gatton College of Pharmacy graduating class selects a faculty member who has been most influential on their education to serve as a “faculty hooder” at graduation. Pond has received this honor six times, more than any other faculty member.
Most recently, she was selected as a Teaching and Learning Peer Consultant by the ETSU Center for Teaching Excellence.
“After 31 years in academia, and 17 as a department chair, I have rarely encountered a more gifted, conscientious and effective teacher,” said Dr. David Roane, professor and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. “Her talent reveals itself in numerous ways, including clear-voiced mastery of content, but most evidently in student engagement, where engagement means enticing students to grapple with complex material and stretch themselves beyond their customary effort.”
In addition to her teaching, Pond contributes to the service and research missions at Gatton. She is an active researcher, opening her research lab to all types of students, including high school, undergraduate, pharmacy and Ph.D. students.
During her tenure, she has mentored 51 pharmacy students through research projects. The students routinely present at the Appalachian Student Research Forum, and starting in 2012, one of her students received an award at this event every year. Two students received research fellowships to carry out a major project.
Pond earned a B.S. in biochemistry and molecular biology at Centre College in 2000 and a Ph.D. in pharmacology and certificate in cell molecular biology at Duke University in 2004. She also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.