Avi Bick and Sarah Lubik earn 2016 TD Canada Trust Distinguished Teaching Awards

 

Beedie School of Business faculty Sarah Lubik and Avi Bick have been named winners of the 2016 TD Canada Trust Distinguished Teaching Award. The prestigious award is the highest teaching honour of its kind at the Beedie School.

Since 1990, Beedie School of Business students, faculty and alumni have nominated teachers from both undergraduate and postgraduate programs for the award.

Up to two awards are presented each year to the teachers who exemplify qualities such as engagement, organization, discipline, enthusiasm, and support in their teaching.

Lubik is a lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at the Beedie School and co-champion of the Technology Entrepreneurship@SFU Program. For the past four years she has organized Opportunity Fest, the School’s annual showcase of undergraduate innovators and entrepreneurs from across SFU.

She is the first Director of Entrepreneurship for SFU, where she plays an integral role in the implementation of the SFU Innovates strategy, a comprehensive range of programs, initiatives and partnerships to develop talent, promote commercialization, engage community partners and support social impact.

She has worked to launch SFU’s pioneering Certificate in Innovation & Entrepreneurship, where six faculties work together to create an interdisciplinary and hands-on experience for all SFU undergraduate students.

She was recently named one of Canada’s ten Innovation Leaders who will help form the nation’s Innovation Agenda. In 2014 she was named among BC’s top entrepreneurs, executives and professionals in Business in Vancouver’s Top 40 Under 40.

“This is one of the highest honours I could aspire to,” says Lubik. “To be nominated by the students, alumni, and faculty who I am trying to impact means the world. In addition, to be placed in a category with so many educators who I admire is highly rewarding and motivating.”

Bick is an associate professor in finance at the Beedie School, where he teaches the topic of derivative securities at the graduate and undergraduate levels. In previous years he also taught the undergraduate-level investments course and the graduate-level financial theory course.

Bick received his PhD from UC Berkeley, and has taught at New York University, and the University of British Columbia. His research has been published in leading academic journals.

“I tell students in my introductory derivative securities course that there is a certain similarity between this topic and Euclidean geometry,” says Bick. “After you graduate, you will not remember most of the formulas, but my true purpose is to teach a certain way of logical thinking which will be useful throughout your life.”

Bick is now a two-time winner of the award, having previously won in 2006. He joins fellow multiple-winners George Blazenko, Ed Bukszar, Alain Duncan, Andrew Gemino, Kamal Masri, Drew Parker, and Daniel Shapiro – all two-time winners – and Mark Wexler, the only three time winner of the award.

Since its inception, 53 different teachers have won the TD Canada Trust Distinguished Teaching Award. Winners are asked to assist the Teaching Effectiveness Committee in choosing the following year’s award winners.

For more information on the TD Canada Trust Distinguished Teaching Awards, visit beedie.sfu.ca/teaching/distinguished-teaching-awards/