UH Hilo kinesiologist Linc Gotshalk receives UH Board of Regents’ Award for Excellence in Teaching
At the foundation of Professor Gotshalk’s highly effective teaching style—affable, approachable, humorous—is his acute awareness about each student’s needs for their future.
By Susan Enright.
Lincoln Gotshalk, professor of kinesiology and exercise sciences and director of the Laboratory for Therapeutic Sciences at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, received a 2023 UH Board of Regents’ Award for Excellence in Teaching. The announcement was made at UH Hilo’s 2023 Awards and Recognition Celebration in May.
The UH Board of Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Teaching is a UH System award decided by the board as tribute to faculty members who exhibit an extraordinary level of subject mastery and scholarship, teaching effectiveness and creativity and personal values that benefit students. This year there were 15 recipients from across the 10-campus system.
Nomination
Professor Gotshalk was nominated for the award by several students in his research team.
“Dr. Gotshalk fosters an enjoyable research environment, which always makes me look forward to my research as part of his lab,” writes Haley Williams, student lab director at Gotshalk’s laboratory, in a nomination letter. “The discussions and research have been transformative and powerful as they encourage critical thinking of endocrinological and research techniques and concepts.”
“I have directly experienced and benefited from Dr. Gotshalk’s moral concern for his students,” continues Williams. “As a mentor, he fosters enthusiasm, confidence, and passion in his students. Due to Dr. Gotshalk’s steadfast support and encouragement, I have grown from [being] uncertain about my place in the academic world to a dauntless student looking forward to a future in research for which I have found my passion.”
Another student writes in a nomination letter, “Overall, Dr. Gotshalk deserves the Medal for Excellence in Teaching due to his exceptional teaching methods and accommodating demeanor. Dr. G is passionate about the subjects he teaches and is overall an admirable teacher who makes me glad I decided to attend this university. He gives each and every student equal opportunity to succeed and excel in courses and does a splendid job setting them up for future success outside of the classroom.”
Building a new program
Gotshalk arrived at UH Hilo in 2000 from teaching at Ohio University Osteopathic Medical School. At the medical school, his doctoral mentor had let him know that UH Hilo wanted to develop a health and human performance program, building on the health and physical education courses that the university offered at that time.
“I was really interested, not solely because it was in Hawai‘i, but because [then college dean of the UH Hilo College of Arts and Sciences] Jerry Johnson was instrumental in bringing the Iron Man competition to the Big Island, and was still involved, and I wanted to collect data from participants,” says Gotshalk, adding that he did conduct that research.
“I also had a burning desire to teach and mentor students from first year to graduation,” he says, meaning a long-term commitment he describes as “a movie not a photograph.”
He set to work with Robin Takahashi, a former longtime instructor of health and physical education at UH Hilo, to develop the new kinesiology and exercise sciences program.
“I originally conceived much, maybe the majority, of KES’s courses, a lot of them sketched out on my plane ride from the East Coast to Hawai‘i upon being hired in 2000,” says Gotshalk. “I taught a large number of the required courses, and was advisor to myriad students.”
The program is now one of the largest on campus, though there was a dip in enrollment during the pandemic. “We are alive and thriving,” says Gotshalk.
The larger picture
The professor has taught a wide range of courses over the years covering anatomy, physiology, basic human movement, nutrition, injury care and prevention, testing and measurements, the science of athlete training, endocrinology, and motor learning.
Gotshalk says his teaching style is affable, approachable, and humorous. About the humorous part, the professor says, “Am I? I think so, at least sometimes.” His students would agree—several mentioned in their nomination letters that Dr. G gives them funny nicknames. “Like ‘sushi chef,'” writes one student, “but all out of care and respect.”
At the foundation of this teaching style is Gotshalk’s acute awareness about each student’s needs for their future.
“I have always felt that it is imperative for me, as a teacher and mentor, to always think of the larger picture, which includes personal and professional development of my students beyond what I am presenting as an instructor,” he explains. “I wheedle out of my students what their hopes and dreams, or lack of them, for the future are, and teach them how to prepare for success beyond their college years, which is only a flash in time in a long life.”
He also provides students with “Thoughts for Today,” what Gotshalk describes as “laundry lists of ideas and skills for future success.” This includes the importance of participating in university and community functions for experience and to garner letters of reference; how to scout out professional positions or graduate school programs early on to set themselves on track for success; how to write a cover letter or answer difficult prompts that employers or graduate schools may spring on them; how to interview successfully, and other skills.
One student writes in a nomination letter, “Every week we meet and even when there isn’t anything to do for our research, Dr. G has his ‘think tanks’ where he talks about different phenomena and things going on in the world and how it relates to what we are doing. Through these discussions I feel as though I have a broader perspective of the world around me.”
“Dr. G is always uplifting all his students and truly sees the potential in every student,” the student adds. “Dr. G has truly helped to instill confidence in me and the direction I am going.”
Students and hands-on research
In addition to classroom teaching, Gotshalk is founder and director of UH Hilo’s Laboratory for Therapeutic Sciences, a learning center for students of all majors who are interested in physiological science research. Since the early 2000s, hundreds of students have benefitted from their hands-on research experiences at the lab with data collection, data analyses, and preparation and presentation of findings.
“Our students get a cutting-edge view of how the human body works and reacts, via scientific study,” says Gotshalk. Investigations have covered studies on creatine supplementation and its effects, anthropometrics and biometrics of Hawaiian school children and their possible susceptibility to metabolic syndrome and pre-type II diabetes, and the effects of exercise on the elderly.
In one project, the research team went to the top of Maunakea to study the effects of altitude on the performance of the UH Hilo men’s tennis team, “a unique study since there is no place on earth where such a study from sea level to 14,000-foot altitude, especially in one day, could take place besides here,” says Gotshalk.
For the past decade, Gotshalk and his students have been studying stress physiology, especially endocrine effects due to stress on biometric and anthropometric measures pre-season to post-season of student-athletes on UH Hilo athletic teams. “This is another unique study because of the need for our athletic teams to fly eastward for most away-games. Eastward flying, and extended flying experiences in general, is a noted physiological stressor.”
The lab has just completed a study of the volleyball team.
A student investigator involved with that study writes in a nomination letter, “This past semester my peers and I got hands-on experience of cortisol testing with the UH women’s volleyball team. We did anthropometric measurements and took saliva samples pre and post season on the volleyball team to see if there was a correlation between stress and traveling east.”
The students conducting this research have presented preliminary observations, techniques, and physiological mechanisms concerning stress, at the Idea Networks of Biomedical Researchers (INBRE) conference hosted by the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine in Honolulu. The students have also presented their work at other organizations’ conferences including UH Hilo’s Students of Hawai‘i Advanced Research (SHARP) program, the American College of Sports Medicine, the National Strength and Conditioning Association, and various science fairs.
This research experience launches the students into their future.
“In the history of our laboratory, dozens, if not over 100, UH Hilo students who have participated in our work have graduated to go off to graduate school, medical school, physical therapy school, and other post-graduate programs,” says Professor Gotshalk. “And a fair number of my students have earned their teaching certificates [and] hold teaching and coaching positions on the Big Island alone.”
Gotshalk sums up this success by saying, “I think that my traits of doggedness and patience, and lack of overt judgement of my students, and pointed inclusion of all who are interested and willing, have served my students well.”
Story by Susan Enright, a public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.
