Charlie Drewes
Charlie Drewes (1946-2005) was an Iowa State University Professor and long-time member of ABLE. Charlie was well-known for his excellence in and love of teaching. His creativity and enthusiasm embodied ABLE values. He created new teaching techniques, strategies or gadgets on a daily, if not hourly, basis and was well-known for sharing his best ideas at ABLE and encouraging teachers, at all levels, to use hands-on classroom activities. Knowing that most teachers have small budgets, he invented and built less expensive alternatives for such things as dissecting scopes, fiber optic lights, and equipment for listening to muscle contractions, always making them available on a non-profit, cost-recovery basis. In 2004, the National Association of Biology Teachers http://www.nabt.org/ named him the National College Biology Teacher of the Year. In 2005 ABLE founded the Charlie Drewes Waiver of Registration Grants to honor his legacy in the ABLE community.
Jean Heitz
Jean Heitz (1948-2020) was a Distinguished Faculty Associate in the Integrative Biology Department (formerly the Zoology Department) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) where she worked with a two-semester Introductory Biology course from 1978-2020. A long-time advocate of investigation-based lab activities, Jean pioneered an intensive research and writing project that became foundational to many students’ experience at the UW. She also organized the department’s award-winning Peer Learning Association, empowering undergraduates to facilitate active learning for their fellow students. Jean loved ABLE and treasured her time at the conference each year. She was especially pleased to host ABLE at the UW Madison in 2017. She frequently presented, was always eager to share resources, and drew so much inspiration from her interactions with other ABLE members. For many years she lacked department funding and paid her own way to the conference, even when times were tight; when she passed, her colleagues thought it fitting to dedicate her name to the Jean Heitz Travel Grants program that provides more educators access to this vibrant, insightful community.
Roberta Williams
Roberta Williams was an involved and enthusiastic member of our association. She hosted three ABLE conferences at her home institution of the University Nevada of Las Vegas in 1985, 1992 (with Bill Wischusen), and 2003.
In June 2005, shortly after her passing, the ABLE Board decided to name the Teaching Initiative Grants, which had begun in 1999, in her honor. The first recipients of the Roberta Williams Teaching Initiative Grant were approved at the 2006 ABLE Board Meeting and awarded for the 2007 membership year.