Credit: Jason Koski/University Photography

Yervant Terzian, the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences, received the Summum Bonum award for teaching excellence from Crestron Electronics Inc. in a ceremony in the Space Sciences Building Dec. 3.

George Feldstein, the digital media company's president and CEO and a member of the Friends of Astronomy, presented the award.

"A good teacher is a force multiplier. He can do more good than any one person can do alone," Feldstein said. In choosing this year's honoree, "the person who immediately came to my mind was Yervant. I don't know of anyone who is more dedicated."

Terzian's current and former students (including Feinstein's daughter, Anne Baretz '85), have agreed. Among other awards, he received Cornell's Clark Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1984; and he is the namesake for an endowment for undergraduate scholarships established in 1999, and for an annual lectureship in astronomy established in 2009.

Terzian founded the New York State Pew Cluster of Colleges and Universities, which works to improve undergraduate science education; and he is director of NASA's New York Space Grant Consortium, which offers educational opportunities and research experience for undergraduate and graduate students. He currently teaches a senior seminar course on critical thinking.

He is also known for his studies of stellar evolution and the discovery of regions of hydrogen gas between distant galaxies -- a finding that indicated the presence of unseen matter in intergalactic space.

Feldstein said that Terzian's passion for teaching was evident to him in their first meeting five years ago, when Terzian gave him a whirlwind 15-minute tour through the field of astronomy.

"When I left, I thought, that was the best lecture I've ever had," Feldstein said.

Terzian added that he hopes his students learn to share his love for astronomy -- but more importantly, that they discover the thrill of learning.

"I try to inspire students to keep learning forever," he said.