Matwiczak and Berner added to university teaching honor roll

Administered by the UT Ex-Students Association, the awards are part of a program that promotes excellence in teaching by recognizing outstanding faculty members, teaching assistants, and advisers. Selections are based on nominees' commitment to student learning, accessibility outside of class, ability to challenge and motivate students, and enthusiasm for teaching.

Matwiczak was named the LBJ School's winner in the faculty teaching category and Berner in the teaching assistant category.

Ken Matwiczak
Matwiczak, who came to the LBJ School in 1993, teaches courses in applied statistics and econometrics, quantitative decision methods, and microeconomics.

Students who nominated him for the teaching award called him an "awesome" and "demanding" professor and praised him for being "available for help outside of class--both at home and in office."

A retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, Matwiczak has a Ph.D. in industrial engineering from Texas A&M University. He has over 24 years of experience in a variety of positions as a teacher, manager, leader, and applied researcher.

Before coming to the LBJ School, Matwiczak was an instructor and associate professor in the Department of Systems Engineering at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York.

Maureen Berner
Berner, an LBJ School Ph.D. student, assists three professors with a seminar on the changing relationship of local/state/federal areas of public sector budgeting.

In nominating her, students described Berner as an "extremely accessible" teaching assistant who "went way above and beyond the call of duty" and who helped students "excel and believe in their own potential."

A Presidential Management Intern from 1991 to 1993, Berner's rotations in that program include assignments to the U.S. House Budget Committee, the U.S. General Accounting Office's European office, and finally to the GAO's Accounting and Information Management Division, where she later was hired as an evaluator in the Budget Issues Group.