Four Texas A&M educators earn Association of Former Students honors
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences faculty honored for teaching excellence
|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Association of Former Students has named its 2026 College-Level Teaching Award recipients, recognizing four faculty members from the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Selected by their students and peers, the honorees are recognized each year for their command of their discipline, inventive teaching methods and genuine dedication to student learning.
These four faculty members show what our College strives for in every classroom, said Jeffrey W. Savell, Ph.D., vice chancellor and dean for Agriculture and Life Sciences.
“Great teaching changes the trajectory of a student’s life, and these four faculty members do that every semester,” Savell said. “Their dedication to students is a credit to our College and to Texas A&M.”
Each of this year’s honorees will receive a framed certificate and a monetary award.
Oral Capps Jr., Department of Agricultural Economics
Oral Capps Jr., Ph.D., executive professor and Regents Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics, was honored for a teaching career spanning more than four decades. Since 1993, he has taught AGEC 105, Introduction to Agricultural Economics, a core course for freshmen across the College. Rather than curving grades, he rewards class attendance and participation through review-quiz “bonus points,” which he calls each student’s “economics quotient.”
Over his 45-year career, Capps has taught more than 100 course sections to roughly 15,000 students. He also co-authored the textbook Introduction to Agricultural Economics, now in its eighth edition and used by about 5,000 students nationally and internationally each year. He has chaired graduate committees for 18 master’s and 28 doctoral students and previously received Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Awards for Teaching in 1995, 2003 and 2015.
Heather Eden, Department of Hospitality, Hotel Management and Tourism
Heather Eden, Ph.D., instructional assistant professor in the Arch H. Aplin III ’80 Department of Hospitality, Hotel Management and Tourism, was recognized for bringing 15 years of hospitality management experience back to her alma mater’s classroom. She created HMGT 300/655: Disney Operations, which pairs weeks of classroom study with an immersive week at Walt Disney World and Universal Studios. She also built a course that trains every doctoral student in the department to teach.
Eden personally invites students to “Howdy Visits,” informal office conversations that help her get to know them individually, even in her largest lecture sections. Colleagues and students credit her with creating a strong sense of belonging for all students.
Melissa Shehane, Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management
Melissa Shehane, Ph.D., instructional assistant professor in the Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management, was honored for building a program that supports students from their first semester through graduation. She redesigned the department’s internship course around National Association of Colleges and Employers career readiness competencies, helping nearly 200 students complete internships with partners such as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute.
Since joining the department full time in 2022, she has taught more than 1,000 students with an average student evaluation score of 4.7 out of 5, and she wrote “Blaze a Trail in Aggieland,” a guidebook that supports first-generation and transfer students in her introductory course. She also serves as co-principal investigator on a $1.5 million U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant that trains graduate fellows for careers in rangeland conservation.
X. Ben Wu, Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology
X. Ben Wu, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, was recognized for three decades of innovation in one of the College’s largest courses. He has taught ECCB 205, Fundamentals of Ecology, since 1995, working with more than 12,000 undergraduates. He also built a series of web-based inquiry projects that walk students through the full process of scientific research, from hypothesis to peer-reviewed reports.
In his graduate course, Landscape Analysis and Modeling, more than 340 students from 19 departments have built their own dissertation and thesis research into the coursework. Wu has chaired or co-chaired 41 graduate students and served on 130 graduate committees across campus. His earlier recognitions include the Association of Former Students’ university-level teaching award and the USDA’s national teaching excellence award.
About the awards
The Association of Former Students College-Level Teaching Awards honor faculty across Texas A&M University’s colleges for teaching excellence, genuine care for students and their commitment to academic rigor. These awards are among the most prestigious faculty honors at the university.
