During Spring Break of 2004, I found out that I was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Assistant in Astronomy of 2003. Whoopee!! :)
The awards ceremony was held on Wednesday, March 24, 2004. For the first time, teaching awards were given out at an innovative/effective teaching "expo" rather than at the other big awards ceremony where the departments give out all the awards (like for outstanding 1st year, 2nd year and advanced grad students). Therefore, my ceremony was poorly attended. Alas. Also, there were only 3 departments that gave out teaching awards there. I know there have got to be more teaching assistants...
But I got Ellyn to come with me (she's awesome) and also the lab coordinator was there, so I had a couple people. My boyfriend had a very nasty flu bug and couldn't even get up to come. My poor family couldn't come, they were too far away :(

 


We were testing the camera. Lab coordinator John Wilson is the dude next to me.


Me getting my award. As you can see, very few people there. It was actually quite anti-climactic. Mine was the first award given and Ellyn quickly took the picture. The dude to the far left in the picture also got one of me, so I think I'll try to see if I can ask for that one too. We shall see...


Me with John Wilson.


Me with the lovely Ellyn.

So, that was that. The ceremony lasted for about 20 minutes and then we snagged some fruit and stuff.
The certificate is paper in a frame - it looks nice and official...
One bad thing - they SPELLED MY NAME WRONG :( 'Grundstom' instead of 'Grundstrom' - I'm getting it changed.