M. Bhanu Murthy Memorial Prize for Excellence in Teaching
M. Bhanu Murthy was a Ph.D. student and teaching assistant in the Department of Marketing. Murthy entered the program in 1982 with a distinguished academic record earned in the Republic of India. Holder of a Ponder Graduate Fellowship, Murthy excelled in his studies and teaching of 6M:100, Introduction to Marketing, at Iowa. Tragically, he contracted an acute form of leukemia and died in the summer of 1983.
The Department of Marketing created this award to honor his memory and to express the department’s commitment to the highest standards of teaching. Undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty members, as well as Murthy’s former employer in India, Godrej and Boyce, donated to fund the award.
The teaching assistants for 6M:100 are responsible for discussion leadership, homework grading, and guidance in paper preparation. They serve to personalize, in small sections, a large introductory course serving 1,300-1,400 students per year. Selected by personal interview and audition from the ranks of Ph.D. and MBA students, the teaching assistants have primary responsibility for two to three sections of the course.
Awardees are recommended on the basis of anonymous course and instructor evaluations. Also important are additional handwritten comments that have invariably praised the enthusiasm, knowledge, energy, and rapport of the prizewinners.
The award winners scattered throughout the United States, from Vermont to Los Angeles, and several Murthy Prize recipients already have achieved distinction in academic and corporate life. Many have commented positively on what the teaching experience and award have meant to their careers and lives.
Through the annual awarding of the Murthy Prize, the Department of Marketing is proud to honor and reaffirm the University’s commitment to teaching as a primary mission.
Past Recipients of the M. Bhanu Murthy Memorial Prize for Excellence in Teaching
| Cathy Brown | July 18, 1984 |
| Deketa Nicholson | December 17, 1985 |
| Robert Bruns | July 2, 1986 |
| Frederick Crawford | June 22, 1987 |
| Miao-Ling Phoebe Lin | August 4, 1988 |
| Jamshed Mobed | August 22, 1989 |
| Jamshed Mobed | July 13, 1990 |
| Peter Noble | August 26, 1991 |
| Michele Pugh | August 31, 1992 |
| John Mittelstaedt | August 25, 1993 |
| Bruce Klemz | September 26, 1994 |
| Kathryn Braun | January 29, 1996 |
| Alexander Fedorikhin | March 7, 1997 |
| Timothy O’Conner | February 12, 1998 |
| Carolyn Bonifield | March 8, 1999 |
| Linda Kohout | October 5, 2000 |
| Inwoo Nam | April 27, 2001 |
| Sangkil Moon | April 15, 2002 |
| Nicole Pfeiffer | May 14, 2003 |
| Himanshu Mishra | April 28, 2004 |
| Robert Hillman | April 29, 2005 |
| Robert Rouwenhorst | April 29, 2005 |
| Robert Rouwenhorst | May 5, 2006 |
| Kyuseop Kwak | April 13, 2007 |
| Suzanne (Beth) Bellman | May 2, 2008 |
