Professors Stauffer and Toczyski Earn
Faculty Excellence Awards for 2006

Each year, the Excellence in Teaching Award honors two Sonoma State University faculty members who have made outstanding contributions to the education of Sonoma State students through classroom instruction and other activities that promote student learning. These awards provide students and faculty an opportunity to reflect on the importance of teaching at SSU and in particular the contributions that award recipients have made to students’ intellectual and moral growth and development. The two awards are funded by private donations: a grant from the Sarlo Foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund and a generous contribution from Bernie and Estelle Goldstein.

This year's award winners are:

LYNN STAUFFER, Ph.D.
Professor of Computer Science

Lynn Stauffer joined the SSU faculty in 1994 after earning her Ph.D. in
Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. She teaches a
range of courses including introductory courses for non-majors and special
topic courses for advanced computer science students. Recently, she taught
a course in data compression that led to collaborative undergraduate
research work in novel coding methods. She served as the Faculty Advisor
for the Computer Club and the Women in Computer Science group for many
years.

Dr. Stauffer emphasizes computational thinking in her courses;
computational thinking involves solving problems, designing solutions, and
understanding human behavior by drawing on fundamental computing concepts.
This emphasis broadens the narrow view of computer science that equates it
with computer programming into the more relevant view that computing and
computational thinking are a fundamental core in many current and future
fields.

SUZANNE TOCZYSKI, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of French
Chair, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures

Suzanne Toczyski began teaching at Sonoma State University in 1998. She received her bachelor’s degree in French and mathematics from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and her master’s and Ph.D. in French literature from Yale University. Prior to her arrival at SSU, she taught at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, and at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is currently Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.

At Sonoma State, Dr. Toczyski’s classes range from introductory-level French language classes to advanced composition, history, culture, and literature. She has also taught various general education courses, including Francophone Caribbean Literatures in English, as well as courses in the Humanities Program and the Freshman Seminar. She is also advisor to the French Club.

Dr. Toczyski’s research interests focus primarily on French writers of the seventeenth century, including Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Blaise Pascal, Madeleine de Scudéry and, most recently, Jean-Baptiste Labat. She is editor of the journal French 17, and also publishes the Bay Area Francophile List, a weekly bulletin of events of interest to French speakers in northern California.