Math instructor’s legacy extends far beyond KU

LAWRENCE — University of Kansas professor of mathematics Bozenna Pasik-Duncan, Ph.D., has been selected to receive a Chancellors Club Teaching Professorship. The award will provide a salary stipend of $10,000 for each of the next five years.

Pasik-Duncan, who has taught mathematics at KU since 1984, will be honored at the Oct. 30 Chancellors Club celebration in Lawrence.

In addition to being a professor in the Department of Mathematics, she is a courtesy professor in the departments of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and in Aerospace Engineering. She has taught a wide range of courses at KU from beginning and honors calculus, to undergraduate probability and statistic courses, to graduate-level courses in stochastic processes. Prior to teaching at KU, she taught mathematics for 14 years at the Warsaw School of Economics in Poland.

“I am thrilled and honored to be selected a Chancellors Club Teaching Professor,” Pasik-Duncan said. “Being recognized by my peers and students for my true passion, teaching and helping others, is exciting and inspirational. KU students are fantastic learners and important contributors to my teaching. I am deeply grateful for the nomination and wonderful support from my colleagues and former students. This special and most beautiful recognition makes me feel the happiest person in the world. Big thanks from the bottom of my heart go to all who made this happen.”

Daniel Katz, chair of KU’s math department, praised Pasik-Duncan for her teaching and for her leadership at KU and in professional organizations worldwide.

“Professor Pasik-Duncan has a long and distinguished record of teaching and mentoring students at KU, and she has done so with singular enthusiasm and passion,” Katz said. “She brings her love of teaching and her love of mathematics into the classroom, and this has been a source of inspiration for her students, several of whom are successful professors and researchers.”

One of those former students, Matthew Haug, associate professor of philosophy at The College of William & Mary, described Pasik-Duncan’s enthusiasm for teaching and learning as a boundless force of nature.

“That enthusiasm is contagious,” he wrote, “and it inspires her students to pursue and achieve goals that they initially would not have thought possible.”

Career highlights

• Teaching honors: G. Bailey Price Graduate Teaching Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching at KU, William T. Kemper Teaching Award, the Frank Morrison Teaching Award, the H.O.P.E. (Honor for the Outstanding Progressive Educator) Teaching Award and the Mortar Board Outstanding Educator Award. Other awards include the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Ministry of Higher Education and Sciences in Poland, and the Louise Hay Teaching Award, a national teaching honor given to only one professor each year from the Association for Women in Mathematics. She was included in the first KU Women of Distinction calendar, and in 2009, she was inducted into the KU Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2011, she received the Steeples Service to Kansas Award, and in 2012, the Outstanding Education Services Award from the Institute of Interfaith Dialog.
• Professional achievements and honors: She is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and has received a number of honors from that institute in recognition of her research and service contributions that include the IEEE Third Millennium Medal and IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS) Distinguished Member Award . She is also a fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), a federation of 50 countries around the globe. She is proud of being a part of her professional organizations that include IEEE CSS, American Automatic Control Council (AACC), IFAC, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and IEEE Women in Engineering. She has been the chair of technical committees on control education in CSS, AACC and IFAC. She was vice president of IEEE CSS and the leader of the Control Delegation of the People’s Republic of China sponsored by the People Ambassador Program. She is founder of CSS Women in Control and founder and faculty adviser of AWM Student Chapter at KU. Her research contributions have been recognized by the National Science Foundation, and she received the foundation’s Career Advancement Award.

The Chancellors Club, formed in 1977 by KU Endowment, recognizes both donors of major gifts designated for specific purposes on any of KU’s campuses and annual donors to the Greater KU Fund. KU Endowment is the independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fundraising and fund-management organization for KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment was the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.