Prof. Coish Receives Perkins Award for Excellence

in Teaching

Ray Coish, professor of geology at Middlebury College

since 1991, is the recipient of this year’s Perkins Award for

Excellence in Teaching. The award is given each year to a member

of Middlebury College’s natural sciences division, alternating

each year between a faculty member in the mathematics/computer

science department and a faculty member in one of the other four

departments in the division.

Professor Coish joined the Middlebury faculty in

1986. He has taught courses in the geologic landscape, earthquake

and volcanoes, the ocean floor, global techtonics, planetary geology,

bedrock geology of Vermont, mineralogy, geochemistry of the natural

environment, and igneous and advanced petrology.

At Middlebury, Professor Coish has chaired the geology

department, served as chair of the natural sciences division,

and served on the Educational Council, Teaching Resources Committee,

Curriculum Committee, and the Independent Scholar Committee.

He is author and co-author of numerous published papers and abstracts,

and has received many substantial grants and awards. He holds

a BSc. from Memorial University at Newfoundland, and a Ph.D. from

the University of Western Ontario.

The Professor Llewellyn R. Perkins and Dr. Ruth M.

H. Perkins Memorial Faculty Research Fund was made possible by

the gift of Dr. Ruth M. H. Perkins ‘32 in memory of her husband,

Professor Llewellyn R. Perkins. Professor Perkins taught at

Middlebury College from 1914 until his retirement in 1941. During

the course of his tenure at Middlebury, he founded and chaired

the mathematics department. Their children, Marion Perkins Harris

‘57, a science teacher, and Dr. David Perkins, a physician, augmented

the fund and expanded the scope of the award to honor their mother,

Ruth, as well. She was a Vermont State Helping Teacher and a

professor of math education at Temple University, in Philadelphia.