T. Dean Pringle

2010 D.W. Brooks Award for Excellence in Teaching

Department: Animal and Dairy Science

Dr. T. Dean Pringle is a professor in the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Animal and Dairy Science (ADS) Department, where he currently serves as the undergraduate co-coordinator.

In 1993, Dean came to UGA after completing a doctorate in meat science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His earlier degrees were in animal science at the University of Florida. Dean grew up in southwest Florida, the product of a teaching family. Much of his early life was influenced by his family's commercial cow-calf operation.

Dean's research focuses on developing and assessing critical thinking skills in ADS undergraduates and in understanding factors that influence student engagement. He also investigates beef and swine meat quality and acceptability.

He has worked with university scientists from Texas A&M, Illinois, Florida, Fort Valley State, Pennsylvania State and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, USDA-AMS and USDA-ARS. He also cooperates with national agricultural research institutions in Uruguay and Brazil. These efforts have resulted in approximately 30 refereed articles, 65 scientific abstracts and more than $1.5 million in extramural funding.

Dean's real passion is the mentoring and education of students. He began teaching in 1995 and has instructed more than 1,700 students. He coordinates the ADS internship program and advises graduate students and about 100 undergraduates per semester.

He was honored with the 2001 Gamma Sigma Delta Outstanding Teacher Award and, in ADS, as the 1996 Outstanding Faculty Member, the 2004 Larry Benyshek Award for Teaching and the 2008 Outstanding Faculty Member. In 1998, Dean was inducted into AgHon, the UGA Agricultural Honor Society. As a faculty advisor to Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity, he was named a Distinguished Alumnus in 2003 and one of the Brothers of the Century in 2004 by the national fraternity.

Dean and his wife Jeni currently reside in Crawford with their three children. The Pringles are members of Tuckston United Methodist Church, where Dean teaches CLUB 56 Sunday School.