Ottawa Ontario - The Canadian Mathematical Society is pleased to award the 2006 CMS Excellence in Teaching Prize to Professor Frédéric Gourdeau, of Laval University's Department of Mathematics and Statistics. The award will be presented at the Society's 2006 summer meeting in Calgary.

Thomson Nelson, a leading Canadian publisher, and Thomson Brooks/Cole, a Thomson Higher Education brand and premier provider of educational materials for mathematics and science - both part of The Thomson Corporation - have partnered with the CMS to support the Excellence in Teaching ward for post-secondary undergraduate teaching in mathematics. The award recognizes sustained and distinguished contributions in teaching at the post-secondary undergraduate level at a Canadian institution.

Frédéric Gourdeau won Laval University's Grand Prize for Distinction in Teaching in 2004-2005. He has been consistently recognized by his Faculty for the excellence attested to by his teaching evaluations. His department's undergraduate student society awards a teaching prize each year, which Gourdeau has won on four separate occasions.

His students speak of him as an inspirational and dynamic teacher, one who succeeds in conveying deep ideas in a manner that is accessible to a broad range of students, and which awakens them to the beauty of the subject. He engages and motivates his students, in part through his own clear love of the material. He demonstrates great care for his students, and is always accessible to help them, supervise projects, or organize supplementary class meetings. He teaches frequently in Laval's undergraduate program for mathematics teacher candidates, and has established a leadership role in this program through his pedagogical innovations and his development of new courses. Students taking these courses speak in glowing terms of how he brings the subject alive for them in a way they have not seen before, and how he sparks and stimulates their interest in this subject. Some feel he is simply the best teacher they have ever encountered. Coming from students with a strong interest in teaching but less mathematical background than mathematics majors, this is high praise indeed.

Related to his outstanding achievements as a teacher, are his numerous pedagogical activities. These include serving as president of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group (CMESG), co-chairing the 2005 Canadian Mathematics Education Forum, and co-founding l'Association québécoise des jeux mathématiques, which runs yearly competitions for students. He participates in various activities of ICMI - the International Commission on Mathematics Instruction, and has presented and written about his own work on incorporating dynamic geometry into the classroom using Cabri. He participates actively in pedagogical discussions, both within his department and beyond. For his department he has developed numerous formal course notes, he coaches the Putnam mathematics competition team, and he engages in a host of other teaching-related activities and outreach.

Frédéric Gourdeau is a Full Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of Laval University. His research is in the area of functional analysis. He obtained his undergraduate degree in mathematics in 1984 from Laval University, and his doctorate in mathematics in 1989 from Cambridge University in England, under the supervision of G.R. Allan. He worked in the field of international cooperation from 1991 to 1995, as a regional coordinator for Canadian Crossroads International. In 1995 he obtained a position at Laval University, where he has remained ever since.

Founded in 1945, the Canadian Mathematical Society is the main national organization whose goal is to promote and advance the discovery, learning, and application of mathematics. The Society's activities cover the whole spectrum of mathematics: scientific meetings and publishing of research material, education at all levels, popularization of mathematics. The education activities include competitions, mathematics camps in all provinces, posters for students, meetings, etc. The CMS organizes national Fora in mathematical education. For more details: (www.cms.math.ca).

The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com), with 2003 revenues of $7.6 billion, is a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers. Thomson provides value- added information, software tools and applications to more than 20 million users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate training and assessment, scientific research and healthcare. With operational headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Thomson has approximately 43,000 employees and provides services in approximately 130 countries. The Corporation's common shares are listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC). Its learning businesses and brands serve the needs of individuals, learning institutions, corporations and government agencies with products and services for both traditional and distributed learning. Thomson Nelson (www.nelson.com) is a leading provider of books and online resources for the educational market in Canada, maintaining over 30 interactive Web sites and publishing a wide range of core and supplemental electronic products. Thomson Brooks/Cole (www.brookscole.com) is a leading provider of higher education textbooks, software, and Internet materials for mathematics, science, and statistics.

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