"The Teaching Medal does not recognise merely technical wizardry. That is not what impelled students in the Arts Faculty to vote Professor Kuiper the best lecturer of the year, as they did in 2000. Good teachers are performers, not just purveyors of information and ideas. At the same time, good teachers enliven their subject-matter; they do not swamp it with their own personality and eccentricities. In this way, as has often been said, they are like good actors.
"For decades, Professor Kuiper has worked at becoming a better and better actor. His publication record includes a steady flow of pieces reflecting on his experience of teaching, as well as articles and reviews in publications aimed at the teaching profession.
"Professor Kuiper is not one of those academics for whom time away from the University invariably means a rest from teaching. His experience as a teacher has been expanded not just at the University of Canterbury but at universities and colleges in the United States, in the Netherlands, and in China.
"In students’ evaluations of our teaching, we are particularly delighted when we read the words 'Made a dull subject interesting'. Those are words that Professor Kuiper has the good fortune to read more often than most of us."
(Extracts from Professor Ken Strongman's citation at the award of the Teaching Medal to Professor Kon Kuiper at the graduation ceremony on 6 April 2004).
