His colleagues call Florida State University Professor of biological science Walter R. Tschinkel a Renaissance man. After all, the internationally respected expert on insect biology is regarded as one of the greatest field naturalists ever, not to mention an inspiring teacher and talented writer, artist and photographer.
Now, the celebrated scientist best known for his definitive body of research on the notorious fire ant and other social insects has been named the 2007-2008 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor—the highest honor bestowed by the FSU faculty on one of its own.
"I have always considered the freedom to spend my working life doing the things I love as a gift," said Tschinkel, who joined the FSU faculty in 1970 with a doctorate from the University of California-Berkeley. "Now, to be named the next Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor is an unexpected and treasured delight."
It's been a particularly positive year for Tschinkel. After nearly four decades of exhaustive laboratory and field experimentation on social insects and their complex colonies, Tschinkel's focus on fire ants culminated last year with his 723-page tour de force aptly titled "The Fire Ants." The book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction, and the New York Times praised Tschinkel for making the ecology and biology of social insects (and the strange lab-and-field lives of the scientists who love them) comprehensible and engaging to lay people.
For 37 years at FSU, Tschinkel's contagious enthusiasm for his own research and remarkable knowledge of biological science beyond it also has engaged scores of undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students. His commitment to teaching is coupled with high expectations of those students, who describe his award-winning classroom performance as imaginative and rigorous. They also praise his design of challenging, long-lived courses such as advanced "Insect Biology" and the "Animal Diversity" laboratory class whose manual he authored, among others.
Beyond the classroom and laboratory, Tschinkel's wide-ranging field research has encompassed not only the fire ants to which he's devoted but also the ecology of arboreal ants (a main food of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker) and the natural history of the Florida harvester ant—or "any other species that strikes us as neat," he said.
"Walter is a faculty member who does it all," said Lawrence G. Abele, FSU Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. "He's a scholar who can communicate with a broad audience, as he demonstrated with his very well-received book, 'The Fire Ants.' Walter has a deep commitment to undergraduate teaching and a strong sense of service to his department and university. His advice and counsel is valuable and sought by his colleagues."
Other educators seek his counsel as well. Tschinkel has served as a content expert to the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT); as a member of the Rhodes Scholar committee; as the biological science liaison to the FSU Honors Program; and as a member of the State University System Academic Course Articulation Committee. He also played a major role in the development of a demanding science course for aspiring elementary school teachers.
"Walter has always found scientific horizons that others did not see or did not have the creativity to study well," said Joseph Travis, dean of FSU's College of Arts and Sciences. "He also refuses to accept that some difficult measurement can't be made or a challenging problem can't be solved. These attributes, vision and tenacity, have made his work so successful and made his reputation so strong."
The Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor award was first presented in 1957 and has been imparted annually ever since. It was known simply as the Distinguished Professor award until 1981, when it was re-named in honor of the late Vice President for Academic Affairs Robert O. Lawton.
To learn more about Tschinkel—the 2007-2008 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor—visit his faculty page at the Department of Biological Science Web site.