Harnish, Lear receive Eisenhower Award for Distinguished Teaching

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Richard Harnish, program coordinator and professor of psychology at Penn State New Kensington, and Ben Lear, professor of chemistry in the Eberly College of Science, are the recipients of the 2026 Milton S. Eisenhower Award for Distinguished Teaching.

The award recognizes excellence in teaching and student support among tenured faculty who have been employed full time for at least five years with undergraduate teaching as a major portion of their duties. Milton S. Eisenhower, brother of former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, served as president of Penn State from 1950 to 1956.

Richard Harnish

Harnish said he finds inspiration for teaching from an unlikely source: former MLB pitcher Vern Law, who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1950s and 1960s. Law once said, “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.”

Harnish said this reflects a fundamental truth about how people learn best — through experience.

“While traditional teaching is often structured as ‘lesson first, assessment after,’ I believe effective teaching should bridge the two, introducing students to new ideas and then giving them meaningful opportunities to apply them,” Harnish said. “By engaging with material actively and reflectively, students gain the kind of experience that prepares them for a world where challenges often precede clear answers.”

He is committed to creating an environment where students can learn, grow and succeed. That approach, he said, is guided in the understanding that students bring diverse strengths, perspectives and ways of learning. That requires lessons with multiple entry points so that students build confidence and better connect with the concepts.

“My goal is for students to leave my classes not only with knowledge but also with skills, confidence and the ability to apply psychological science to real-world problems,” Harnish said. “That is why I design assignments that go beyond memorization and foster application.”

His courses task students with designing, conducting and presenting research projects or collaborating with community partners engaged in social issues. This lets students see theories put into practice, he said.

“These kinds of projects make the material more engaging and relevant while equipping students with competencies valued by employers,” Harnish added.

In some of his smaller classrooms, lectures are replaced with student discussions. Others rely on group projects that focus on peer interactions and feedback to guide the learning process.

Harnish himself is always learning. He listens to student feedback and pursues professional development opportunities. He said he's found Penn State courses on teaching invaluable.

“Ultimately, I teach the way I do because I want every student, regardless of background or starting point, to experience learning that is active, applied and transformative,” Harnish said. “By combining theoretical foundations with real-world application, high expectations with deep support and varied strategies with continual reflection, I aim to create courses where all students can succeed and where the lessons they learn will continue to serve them long after the course ends.”

Students said Harnish is a dedicated and patient educator who is committed to growth and mentorship. They also found his courses engaging and relevant.

“Harnish’s approach to teaching is both intellectually rigorous and deeply engaging. He has a remarkable ability to make complex psychological concepts clear, relevant and applicable to everyday life,” a former student said. “His lectures weren’t just about conveying information — they sparked curiosity, encouraged critical thinking and invited genuine discussion. He never taught from a script; instead, he created a dynamic classroom environment that pushed us to ask deeper questions and think beyond the textbook.”

Ben Lear

Lear builds his teaching philosophy on three principles: Confusion is the first step to learning; learning is an active process; and it also is a targeted activity.

He said the greatest learning leaps happen when students are challenged to think differently and upset what they perceive they already know. Confused students naturally want clarification and resolution and that path yields the greatest learning rewards, he said.

He tasks his students with actively applying what they’re learning in the classroom.

“Effective teaching recognizes that there is simply no other way to learn than by doing,” Lear said. “One cannot assimilate new models for the world passively. Instead, learners must confront these models. They must struggle with them, challenge them and ultimately decide if they wish to assimilate them into their worldview.”

He said active learning is done by first identifying what needs to be learned and then participating in activities that strengthen that knowledge.

“Working from these three beliefs, my philosophy is that a teacher’s role is to mentor students in their journey from confusion to understanding,” Lear said. “A teacher should help students recognize and navigate the stages of learning, providing them with ample guided and curated opportunities to practice their learning.”

Active learning is done through structured assignments completed outside the classroom followed up by in-class activities that strengthen these concepts. Lear said he asks large-scale and open-ended questions that challenge students’ beliefs and guide them to new understandings. Often, they’re creating, consuming and critiquing data visualizations.

He supplements these lessons with classroom activities, discussions during office hours, written or video tutorials and design or technical challenges. He has a YouTube channel, a Wiki page and is creating a book on using Python coding for chemistry. AI (artificial intelligence) supplements his course on data visualization.

His chemistry courses also feature demonstrations followed by peer student discussions. A lesson on the behavior of gasses begins with a calculation on the speed bromine travels, followed by a demonstration of the gas moving at 500 miles per hour.

Students called Lear a dynamic educator who encouraged them to view concepts from several angles. They said that this proved useful as they enrolled in more advanced courses such as organic and biochemistry.

“Beyond the fantastic course structure and in-depth material, what set Lear apart is the effort he made to bring the real world into the classroom,” a former student said. “From in-class demonstrations using magnets to illustrate the paramagnetic properties of elements to coating pennies in silver to highlight double displacement reactions, every lecture and recitation felt engaging and exciting. Beyond being an interesting spectacle, these demonstrations allowed us to ‘see’ the physical impacts of the properties and reactions we were learning.”