Provost Recognizes LeBow Faculty with Research and Assessment Awards

Drexel’s Office of the Provost recognized a number of LeBow faculty members in the areas of teaching, scholarship and professional service.

Yoto Yotov, PhD, associate professor of economics received the 2017 Provost Award for Outstanding Mid-Career Scholarly Achievement.

The award is given to a tenured or tenure-track professor who has worked at Drexel for at least six years and has shown documented evidence of exemplary research accomplishments in their discipline and substantial positive impact on students through mentorship and/or teaching. Yotov was one of just two mid-career recipients for this year. The award includes recognition as well as a monetary award.

“Yoto is among the top researchers in the college with the unique ability to produce research which is highly regarded by elite academic journals and also at the same time invaluable to leading policy organizations,” said Vibhas Madan, director of the School of Economics.

Yotov’s research has been published in top academic journals such as American Economic Review and the Journal of International Economics. It also supports the work of national and global policy organizations such as the World Bank, World Trade Organization and U.S. International Trade Commission. He also recently published a book on trade policy analysis utilizing the structural gravity model.

Not only does Yotov excel in research, he takes his role as teacher and mentor seriously as well.

“He is a brilliant instructor with an amazing amount of passion for teaching and educating students at all levels,” said Madan. “He has taught undergrad, masters as well as PhD student with equal success.”

Christopher Finnin, EdD, director of General Business and Frank Linnehan, PhD, dean of LeBow, were also recognized with the Drexel University Assessment and Pedagogy Award with Scott Warnock, PhD, director of the Drexel Writing Center in the College of Arts and Sciences. The award recognizes individuals and teams that have utilized assessment to improve a teaching and learning initiatives and, as a result, have significantly impacted curriculum design and the overall quality of teaching and learning at Drexel.

They were recognized for their collaborative efforts between LeBow and the Drexel English department. Each year LeBow collects 300 writing samples from BUSN 101, BUSN 102 and ORGB 300. Then 20 of those are evaluated by assessors from the business and writing community based on a rubric developed by Warnoc . The analyzed results identify opportunities to change the curriculum of those courses to improve student writing.

An article looking at the results over a seven year period was published in the Journal of Business and Technical Education in 2016. The article has been nominated as a best article on pedagogy or curriculum in technical or scientific communication by the Conference on College Composition & Communication.