Barnes is among 16 recipients of the UNC Board of Governors Awards for Excellence in Teaching. The award will be presented at a recognition luncheon May 11 in Chapel Hill. Winners receive a commemorative bronze medallion and $7,500 cash prize.

A faculty member at Western since 1996, Barnes has consistently demonstrated exceptional teaching skills throughout her career, WCU Chancellor John W. Bardo said.

“A student once asked Dr. Barnes what a mixed partial derivative looked like. She responded by showing up at the next class meeting with a model made of matchsticks and clay,” Bardo said. “Her students got it, and Dr. Barnes became a regular visitor to the toy and craft sections of local stores. Creativity and a determination to discover new ways of presenting complex materials to students are the hallmarks of Professor Barnes’ teaching.”

That creativity also can sometimes take unexpected turns, Bardo said. “Most students do not expect a lot of reading and writing in their math classes, until they take a class from Dr. Barnes,” he said. “Not only has she authored a fairy tale – ‘King Epsilon’ – to illustrate the principles of mathematical analysis, she also expects her students to write. In ‘Simon and the Snoring Pigs,’ students are required to model data with a cosine curve to explain their findings in a formal paper. Students report that the assignment helped them become more adept in solving word problems.”

That’s not to imply that it’s all fun and games in Barnes’ classes, Bardo said. “These out-of-the-ordinary activities do not take the place of rigorous mathematics; they simply serve as a starting point for students so they may better comprehend mathematics,” he said.

Barnes earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Florida in 1990 and her doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1996.

Barnes and the 15 other award recipients, representing an array of academic disciplines, were nominated by special committees on their home campuses and selected by the Board of Governors Committee on Personnel and Tenure. The awards will be presented by UNC President Erskine Bowles and Board of Governors Chairman Jim W. Phillips of Greensboro.

Established by the Board of Governors in April 1994 to underscore the importance of teaching and to reward good teaching across the university, the awards are given annually to a tenured faculty member from each UNC campus. Winners must have taught at their present institutions at least seven years. No one may receive the award more than once.