The Rolyn Optics
Outstanding Graduate Student
Teaching Assistant Awards

To date -- spring 2007 for the fall 2006 semester -- Rolyn Optics Company has rewarded 57 OSC graduate students.

The Rolyn Optics Awards recognize and reward Optical Sciences graduate students who have done outstanding work as teaching assistants.  Rolyn Optics gives three awards at the end of each semester for a total of six awards per academic year.  Each teaching assistant at Optical Sciences is eligible to receive one award each year and becomes eligible again the following year.

The teaching assistants chosen to receive the award are selected by an Optical Sciences faculty committee on the basis of teaching evaluations from students and letters of recommendation from faculty course supervisors.  Faculty members have nominated their most outstanding teaching assistants for the award based on a variety of reasons including unusual dedication to student assistance, the design of innovative teaching labs, the launch and maintenance of course web sites, and excellence in substitute lecturing.

Because the nature of the award involves a high degree of excellence seldom seen even among a talented group of select students, the awards have gradually acquired great prestige among OSC faculty members who nominate their students and are prized by the students chosen to receive them.

The award consists of a letter of commendation, an award certificate, and a cash prize.  When the award program began, the cash prize for each recipient was set at $1,000 and has since been increased to $1,500.  Rolyn Optics Company does not attach strings or conditions to the prize and students are able to use it in any way they choose.  Students have used the prize in many different ways including tuition and other fees associated with attending grad school, financing summer internships, travel, expenses associated with beginning a family, and beefing up a savings account for the future.

Rolyn Optics Company of Covina, California, a supplier of precision optics since 1925, is a pioneer in modern fabrication and distribution of quality off-the-shelf industrial and precision optics.  Their in-house fabrication and metrology capabilities enable them to modify many of their stock items to fit customer needs for "almost stock" items and they also supply large production runs of completely custom parts.  For more information about Rolyn Optics Company, please visit their web site at www.rolyn.com.

Thank you, Rolyn Optics, for recognizing and supporting outstanding teaching assistants at Optical Sciences.

Award Recipients