Glen MacDonald

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Glen MacDonald began his teaching career after earning his B.A. at UC Berkeley in 1977, his M.S. from Calgary in 1980 and his Ph.D. in botany from Toronto in 1984. During the first days of MacDonald's teaching career, few might have predicted his incredible success as a professor today. As a promising young professor of geography at McMaster University in Canada, he admits in retrospect that he tried to do too much too fast, as students indicated in his first evaluations. But eager to learn and grow in his profession, he sought advice from more seasoned instructors and reflected on his own experiences as a student to form four primary educational goals and approaches that have helped guide his success throughout 17 years in teaching: to inform, to excite and engage, to promote critical thinking and to develop communication skills.

Over his 11 years at McMaster, MacDonald received the Departmental Undergraduate Award for Teaching Excellence, the Faculty of Science Award for Teaching Excellence and the University Award for Teaching Excellence. In 1995, he joined the UCLA department of geography, in which he serves as vice chair and graduate advisor, and the department of organismic biology, ecology and evolution. He has since taught 16 undergraduate and graduate courses. Geography 5: People and the Earth's Ecosystems is one of his most popular classes, attracting a variety of students for whom this class serves as a prerequisite to the major and a general elective.

With this opportunity to reach such a wide audience, he works hard to engage his students in the material with a hands-on approach, incorporating audiovisual material, humorous anecdotes and field trips to the Santa Monica Bay and other more distant parts of the world to study sea life or vegetation. MacDonald has consistently earned outstanding evaluations in every aspect of his classes, commending his passion, excitement, clarity and concern for student learning.

Beyond the University, MacDonald has worked to further geographical and environmental education in the community. In the K-12 system, he volunteers as a judge of science fairs and speaks at career days in local elementary and middle schools, where he particularly tries to encourage female students to pursue careers in the sciences, a career choice still not common among women. He also offers occasional evening upper division courses to encourage study of environmental change or world vegetation by part-time and extension students.

With his extraordinary commitment to his field and his students, MacDonald has inspired and helped many along their career paths. Three of his four Ph.D. students have gone on to university positions, all of whom will undoubtedly look to the advice of this enthusiastic and seasoned instructor.