Mary Ann Rankin

While dean of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas, her biggest achievement was her personal drive to redesign the education of science and math teachers for secondary schools. She investigated inadequacies and barriers, led an exhaustive redesign, and oversaw implementation and further development. This system of teacher education, known widely as UTeach, was brilliantly successful. Very shortly, it was producing science and math teacher-education majors in the UT College of Natural Sciences, with better GPAs and better diversity than in the College overall, and in numbers exceeding those preceding redesign by several fold. UTeach is the most widely emulated basis for secondary teacher education reform -- and not just in STEM fields.