We nominate Mr. Craig Russell for the Edyth May Sliffe Award for Distinguished High School Teaching. We cannot imagine a teacher more deserving of this award, due to his diligent leadership, sacrificial time outside the classroom, and consistent excellence inside the classroom.

For several years, Mr. Russell has served as the Executive Teacher of the Mathematics department at our high school. In our very fluid university community, we have noticed that this is no easy job because teachers have come and gone, sometimes leaving Mr. Russell in a bind. However, he has always managed to find someone very qualified to teach each particular math class, so the students at our high school do not suffer. His leadership as the head of the math department has been both reliable and comforting. Math has continued to be a big priority at our high school because of Mr. Russell’s leadership.

In addition to his administrative duties, Mr. Russell also spends many, many hours outside the classroom encouraging students and inspiring them to love mathematics, especially in our extracurricular math events. He sees to it that all the math teams and math competitions keep running at our high school for each grade level, including MathCounts for subfreshmen, all local and state levels of the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ICTM) competitions, and the annual AMC/AIME math exams. Along with other practices, each year Mr. Russell invests one of his Saturdays to help train all math team members and kindly feed them pizza at the end. He always takes us to each math meet, re-assigns team members when someone can’t make it, and keeps track of all our scores, which can be rather complicated for the many categories within some competitions. For the individual AMC exams, he distributes the appropriate level AMC study booklets for each student, encourages everyone to keep studying on their own, and works with anyone needing extra help as they tackle some of the very challenging math exam problems.

Outside of class, we also benefit from Mr. Russell’s willingness to engage in individual study projects with students who are interested in learning about specific topics. For instance, one of us was interested in learning more about number theory, and Mr. Russell somehow found time to meet on a regular basis each week to explore and discuss this topic with the student. In the summers, Mr. Russell often co-teaches a free “Math Days” camp with Professor Scott Ahlgren from the University of Illinois. This not only keeps our ties with the University of Illinois math department strong, it also provides an excellent math camp for any high school student in the area who wishes to apply and come. Mr. Russell is always willing to serve students. Once, when a team from our high school won in the national Space Day competition and needed a faculty member to go to Washington, DC , Mr. Russell volunteered his time to take the team because none of the science teachers was able to go.

Finally, Mr. Russell is a very well-qualified, excellent, and organized classroom teacher. At our high school, he usually teaches Algebra II/Trig and Statistics, and sometimes Calculus as needed. With degrees from MIT and Rensselaer Polytechnic, Mr. Russell may be over-qualified to be teaching at the high school level. However, perhaps this is one reason why he is able to teach difficult math concepts so well. He always explains concepts very clearly, and he is very clear about his expectations for homework and exams as well. Students always know where they stand with their grades, so parents are also more aware of their child’s progress and can help encourage success in mathematics. As a laboratory high school, Uni High seeks to try new curriculum and teaching methods, and Mr. Russell is always helping with this mission, whether it is trying new textbooks or writing materials of his own.

Craig Russell is very deserving of the Edyth May Sliffe Award for Distinguished High School Teaching. He has motivated and prepared not only the three of us for success in mathematics, but our entire student body as well. Thank you for the opportunity of nominating someone who has dedicated so much of his life to teaching and to us.