University recognizes three faculty members for excellence in teaching

Three Rutgers Business School faculty members received a 2019 Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching from the university.

The award, created by President Robert Barchi in 2017, recognizes non-tenure track full-time faculty members in the arts and humanities, sciences and social sciences who have demonstrated outstanding teaching in classroom or clinical instruction, curriculum development or mentoring.

Among the recipients awarded this year were:

Mason Ameri, who teaches management skills, organizational behavior and executive leadership. Ameri, who specializes in managing diversity, specifically the equal opportunity of people with disabilities, is part of Rutgers Business School’s management and global business faculty.

Ameri was awarded for “his innovative teaching, which balances solid theory with practical, real-world experience, challenging students to excel while supporting them in achieving their goals.:

Mukesh Patel, a serial entrepreneur with experience in private equity, teaches in the Rutgers Business School Executive MBA and Executive Education programs. He also oversees the Innovation Laboratory at the Rutgers Honor College. In 2018, Patel served as a faculty advisor to a team of students who traveled to London as regional finalists in the Hult Prize Competition.

Patel’s citation states that his award was in recognition of his “extraordinarily engaged and enthusiastic teaching and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students, including his innovative curriculum design and outstanding ability to foster educational collaborations across multiple Rutgers units.”

Stacy Smollin Schwartz teaches introductory marketing and digital marketing at Rutgers Business School, and she has developed and lead executive-level curriculum on e-commerce, social media and mobile marketing for Executive Education programs.

Schwartz was chosen for the award based on her “ability to stimulate students to push themselves to new ways of thinking and her talent for bringing abstract and theoretical concepts to life, making them understandable to students at all levels,” according to the citation from the university president’s office.

She brings more than 20 years of marketing experience, which include leadership roles at internet advertising pioneer DoubleClick, into the classroom.

“This annual, year-end award recognizes outstanding members of the Rutgers community who are selected by their colleagues for exceptional contributions in teaching,” said Rutgers Business School Dean Lei Lei. “We are very proud that out of the five Rutgers recipients of this prestigious award (Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick campuses), three are RBS faculty members.”

As part of the award, each recipient receives a $1,000 honorarium to use at their discretion.