Professor named UF Teacher/Scholar of the Year by UF president

Scott Powers said he doesn’t consider himself a great teacher — but UF President Kent Fuchs does.

On Monday, Powers found out Fuchs had selected him as UF’s Teacher/Scholar of the Year, which Powers considers the university’s most prestigious honor for a faculty member. According to the UF website, the selected nominee will also be UF’s nominee for the SEC Professor of the Year award.

The award also comes with $6,000, he said.

Powers, a professor in UF’s College of Health and Human Performance, will be the first from his department to receive the award, which UF’s president began giving out in 1960.

“It’s a great feeling to be recognized by the University of Florida for having the two traits that the university really appreciates. That’s teaching and scholarship,” Powers said.

Powers has been a professor at UF for 28 years, teaching about health and exercise science. As a professor, he said he always tries to learn more about his students so he can help them find their passion.

“The key to be successful in life is to find something that you’d do for free — that you love it so much you’d do it for free, then you trick someone into paying you to do it,” Powers said.

The research he has conducted for the past 18 years focuses on skeletal muscle wasting, which is when a patient’s diaphragm muscles deplete, due to their inability to breathe without a respirator. His goal is to find a treatment to stop the deterioration, but Powers said he’d be just as happy if one of his students discovers the solution.

“They’ll carry this torch, and one of them will solve the puzzle,” he said.

Paige Gillett, a 21-year-old UF applied physiology and kinesiology junior, said while working at Publix, customers would tell her good things about Powers. On the first day she attended his Physiology of Exercise and Training class, she said she knew they were right.

“He just emanated passion and enthusiasm throughout the entire semester,” Gillett said.

She said seeing Powers’ love for his job inspired her to discover her own passion.

“You could tell he showed up to class every day and really loved what he was doing,” Gillett said. “And so I feel like that’ll motivate me to go out and do something I enjoy and really pursue my passion.”

Contact Romy Ellenbogen at rellenbogen@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @romyellenbogen

Scott Powers