Dr. Robert F. Olin

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Dr. Robert F. Olin, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at The University of Alabama, will receive the prestigious Year 2002 Virginia B. Smith Innovative Leadership Award on Nov. 9, 2002 at ceremonies in Washington, D.C.

Jointly presented by the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, the award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated leadership and innovation in American higher education.

Olin will be recognized for his “long-term career commitment to broad-based strategies to improve mathematics education and the use of technology in its instruction,” said Austin Doherty, chair of the Virginia B. Smith Innovative Leadership Award Steering Committee.

Olin founded the Math Technology Learning Center in 2000 at UA. The 240-computer math learning community in UA’s College of Arts and Sciences was designed to remove traditional obstacles to undergraduate learning of math by replacing lecture and blackboard instruction with interactive, self-paced computer programs in an environment where students also receive individual tutoring.

The center, which is located in Tutwiler Hall, received the Special Award of Merit from the Alabama Quality Council in 2001. The Math Technology Learning Center was established with a $200,000 grant from the national Pew Grant Program in Course Redesign through the Center for Academic Transformation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Additional funding was provided by a Congressional grant though the U.S. Department of Education.

The center was based on Virginia Tech’s Math Emporium, a program also developed by Olin while he served as chairman of the department of mathematics at Virginia Tech. The program, which instructs over 7,000 students a year at Virginia Tech, received national recognition for its successful use of computers in math learning. Olin has given more than 500 presentations on its system to businesses and higher educational institutions.

“Innovations in technology are rapidly changing how we teach in higher education, said UA interim President J. Barry Mason. “Technology is accelerating rote learning exercises and enabling faculty to spend more time on higher quality interactions with students.

“Since coming to the University two years ago, Bob Olin has been a leader in implementing innovative learning technology at the University while inspiring the faculty to explore and put into place new ways of teaching and learning,” Mason said. “The Math Technology Learning Center is a successful, working example of Dean Olin’s vision, and we commend him for his extraordinary contributions to the achievements of students nationwide.”

A strong proponent of the value of learning communities, Olin has also led in the development of undergraduate residential learning communities in UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, including the Parker-Adams Freshmen Year. Designed to offer freshmen strong social and academic support, the Parker-Adams program had a 94.9 percent retention rate its first year.

Since joining the UA staff in 2000, Olin has overseen a 9.1 percent increase in College contract and grant awards in the last year and the construction of the $58 million, state-of-the-art Shelby Hall Interdisciplinary Sciences Building, one of the largest academic research buildings in the Southeast. He is also spearheading plans for a $35 million Performing Arts Center.

Olin is chair of UA's Budget Reallocation Committee, charged with identifying some $16.2 million in University funds to support a system-wide faculty salary enhancement initiative.

In addition to his duties at UA, Olin is a member of two standing boards in the National Research Council, the Committee on Undergraduate Science Education and the Steering Committee on Criteria and Benchmarks for Increased Learning in Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The National Research Council is one of four arms of the National Academies that also includes the National Academy of Sciences, The National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.

Olin received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1970 from Ottawa University in Kansas and a doctorate in mathematics in 1975 from Indiana University in Bloomington. He has authored numerous scholarly papers in the fields of operator theory and functional analysis and has had over 20 years of continuous research funding.

Prior to coming to UA, Olin was a faculty member at Virginia Tech for 25 years and served as chair of VT’s department of mathematics for six years.

The Virginia B. Smith Innovative Leadership Award is named for Virginia Smith, president emerita of Vassar College and founding director of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. She is also former associate director of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. Smith is widely known for her extraordinary contributions as an innovative leader throughout her career, as educator, foundation director and public policy scholar.

The College of Art and Sciences is the largest liberal arts college in Alabama and The University of Alabama’s largest division with 350 faculty and 6,600 students in more than 25 departments and programs.