Who says Southwestern faculty members get a summer vacation?

Suzanne Buchele's schedule over the past three months included serving on a faculty evaluation task force charged with revamping the way faculty are evaluated with respect to teaching; attending Siggraph 2002, a week-long computer graphics conference in San Antonio that drew 20,000 participants from around the world; supervising a computer science honor student; and furthering her research on the conversion between surface models and solid models of objects.

A Brown Fellowship recipient for the 2002-03 academic year, Buchele will have a reduced course load that provides more time to focus on her research, which she hopes will help her publish papers on the topic and improve her teaching.

"The computer science discipline is challenging to teach because change happens so fast," she says. "Our curriculum focuses on underlying concepts rather than new technology, because we must teach our students to adapt--to learn how to learn. While students might prefer to concentrate on the latest technology, that knowledge may only be useful for a few years. We need to prepare them to get past their first job."

In fact, some of what garners discussion time in Buchele's class is derived from the latest magazines or journals as many of the concepts aren't yet in textbooks. "My students also keep me updated on the latest trends, especially with computer games. We have a good two-way exchange going."

Buchele lives in Salado with her spouse Steve, a pastor at Lake Belton, and her three children Wesley, Grace and Anna. She joined the mathematics and computer science department four years ago after completing her doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin.

Buchele serves on the University's Committee on Discipline, Academic Affairs Committee and is vice president of Southwestern's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. This November, she and two other faculty members will take a team of student programmers to Baton Rouge for the ACM South Central Regional Programming Contest.

"I truly believe my department is the best on campus. Our faculty works collaboratively and there is not a single colleague that I don't love. Perhaps that's a bit 'touchy-feely' for a computer scientist, but it's true."

Maybe that's why teaching, which began as somewhat of an experiment, has become so important to her. After completing her undergraduate degree from Connecticut College, she moved to Austin to work as a research scientist for a company that performed quality control industrial CAT scanning.

"After seven years, I decided to go back to school. I always figured I would return to industry after I got my Ph.D., but some of my faculty mentors convinced me that I would make a good professor. So I thought I'd give it a shot, and now I love it."