2021 Morrill Award winner announced

Marcy Towns

Jay Akridge, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and diversity, has announced Purdue's Morrill Award winner for 2021.

The Morrill Award was initiated in 2012 to honor the Morrill Act of 1862, which allowed for the establishment of land-grant colleges and universities. The award is the highest honor that Purdue confers on a member of its faculty and comes with a $30,000 prize, which may be used as discretionary funds or salary supplement. Each year, the Office of the Provost selects up to three Morrill Award recipients based on the recommendations of a selection committee composed of distinguished members of the Purdue faculty.

The 2021 Morrill Award winner is Marcy Towns, the Bodner-Honig Professor of Chemistry in the College of Science.

Towns is an internationally recognized leader in the field of chemistry education. She studies best practices for teaching and learning in undergraduate chemistry and is recognized as one of the foremost experts in evidence-based learning, which couples research and classroom practice. Her research in this area has transformed every course Towns has taught, and has impacted not only her own students, but also more than 20,000 students in other courses during her time at Purdue.

Towns is only the second scholar, and the first woman, to be honored with three of the most prestigious national awards in chemistry education: the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Nyholm Prize; the James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry from the American Chemical Society; and the American Chemical Society’s Award in Research for the Teaching and Learning of Chemistry.

In addition, Towns has received nearly every teaching award that Purdue University confers including the Murphy Award, the Kelly Award for Outstanding Teaching in Chemistry and the Outstanding Innovation in Helping Students Learn Award.

“Professor Towns’ ability to connect with students, and deeply understand how they learn, has transformed pedagogical practices on our campus,” Akridge said. “Beyond our borders, her pioneering research – including the digital badging assessment tool – has impacted chemistry teaching and learning on an international scale.”

Towns joined Purdue in 2006 as an associate professor.  She received her BA from Linfield College and both her MS and PhD from Purdue.

Towns and other award winners from 2021 will be recognized in the virtual Faculty Awards Convocation, which will be posted on the Office of the Provost website by mid-July.