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Dr. Heidi Steltzer earns national award for research, teaching and mentoring
DURANGO, CO - Dr. Heidi Steltzer, assistant professor of biology at Fort Lewis College, is the first recipient of the Sulzman Award for Excellence in Education and Mentoring from the American Geophysical Union. The award is given for excellence in research, while also excelling in teaching and mentoring the next generation of scientists.
The Sulzman Award is named for Dr. Elizabeth Sulzman, a scientist and teacher at Oregon State University. Unfortunately, Dr. Sulzman passed away, but she is remembered for her tremendous impact on her students.
Dr. Steltzer, who knew Dr. Sulzman, understands the weight that being the first recipient of this award carries, especially given its namesake.
“It’s an honor. It’s an honor to receive the award, to be the first recipient,” she says. “I also knew the woman who the award’s in honor of, so it felt more significant in that regard.”
Dr. Steltzer’s research into alpine climates and plants is well regarded by the scientific community, but one doesn’t have to speak with her long before the conversation turns to her passion and commitment for teaching and mentoring her students. Perhaps that’s because she knows the challenges that exist to being successful in studying the sciences and making a career of it.
One of those challenges, particularly for women, is trying to balance a family and a career. Having to make that decision may be one reason why women are still a minority in scientific fields. Dr. Steltzer, who has two children, is an example of how a woman in the sciences can successfully navigate family and career, and that’s something she feels is important to share with her students.
“Certainly women should be choosing the sciences and be recognizing that they can do that and have children,” she says. “It’s difficult to find out when and where and how, but those decisions can be made. I think that having female role models in that way is really important to our students because for many of them children are a priority and they know that they don’t want to not have a family and so they need to see examples that they can do both.”
Dr. Steltzer certainly had her own examples and mentors during her academic journey. Through hard work and the guidance of others, she earned degrees from Duke University and the University of Colorado. She looked into a variety of research areas, including marine biology and tropical biology, but it wasn’t until she spent a summer working at the Rocky Mountain Biology Lab near Crested Butte, CO, that she found her path.
“I had no problem with altitude sickness,” she recalls. “I don’t mind being cold. I slept in a cabin full of critters that lived in the cabin with myself and my bunkmates for the summer, and it just seemed to be a better match in terms of what I wanted for experiences and [a] climate that I found easy to work in.”
Following her education, she set out to find a home to begin her career as a teacher. It was a fortuitous visit to Durango that helped her find her way to Fort Lewis College.
“I was sitting down at Carver’s with my then boyfriend, now husband, chatting away and overheard someone behind us talking about the college that was up on the hill,” she says. “I was like, ‘There’s a college? Here?’ So I was pretty surprised to find out that a town this small and this fantastic also had a great college.”
The chance to focus on teaching science to outdoor-minded undergraduates in a small college, liberal arts environment is something that she finds particularly important.
“The opportunity to have classes where you get to know your students is a really rewarding experience as part of teaching, and I think that’s missing from a lot of parts of education in higher ed in our country right now,” she explains.
“I think the background of our students in having engaged in outdoor activities a lot as part of their growing up and their experiences, whether it’s on a ranch or on a farm or just the sports that they love, makes it easier to tie in and connect to why we would want to study, think about, and plan for the well being of the environment.”
As the first recipient of the Sulzman Award for Excellence in Education and Mentoring, Dr. Steltzer exemplifies the commitment and the responsibility that goes along with being a great mentor and teacher. For her, to simply recite information so her students can pass a test is not enough to truly prepare the scientists of tomorrow. She believes in creating an environment where her students have the chance to take charge of their learning and develop the tools that’ll help them as they progress.
“Higher ed, the way it currently works, there are a lot of students who want the classes to be easy, and they just want to move through them, but I feel like I’m not doing my job if I do that because ultimately a degree isn’t what is going to enable students to move forward in a successful career path. It’s the skills that they know. And so, how do we create those opportunities where the students want to invest, begin to invest, and then see the rewards of that investment?”
Learn more about Dr. Steltzer and the opportunities offered by the Fort Lewis College Biology Department.
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