Dan Gebo
As 2014 draws to a close, NIU Today offers a look back at 14 of the top stories from the year.
No. 6
Dan Gebo, who has won every award that NIU has to offer for great teaching and research, earned even greater recognition in 2014.
One week before Thanksgiving, Gebo was named the 2014 Illinois Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
“A teacher needs to be part counselor and part mentor to ensure that students develop their full potential as questioners and knowers,” Gebo said. “My goal is to help students to see a wider perspective of the world, gain insights that they had not considered before and shift their thoughts into a larger better-integrated arena of knowledge. After this, students are generally highly motivated to succeed.”
A comparative anatomist and paleontologist, Gebo specializes in the evolution of monkeys, apes, humans and lower primates. He teaches introductory physical anthropology and a wide range of courses in primate and human anatomy and evolution.
Over the course of his 27-year career at NIU, nearly 7,000 students have taken his classes.
