faculty excellence Regents Professor Teaches Students Analytical ‘Beehavior’ Several years ago, a group of admiring students commissioned an action figure in the likeness of their favorite teacher, Regents Professor Charles Abramson. Abramson, also a zoology and entomology adjunct professor, has a background in physiological psychology. He studies how an animal’s environment influences its learning. He has examined everything from ant to elephant behavior but is also fond of honeybees. The variety keeps him on his toes. “One of the greatest thrills I’ve ever had in research was working with honeybees one day and then working with elephants the next. That was quite remarkable,” he says. Abramson has studied the effect of alcohol on bees and its possible application to human alcoholism problems, as well as the purported effects of cell phone signals on the health of bees. He’s also studied the effect of pesticides on the learning abilities of honeybees and Africanized honeybees, known as killer bees. The newly-minted Regents professor has authored researchbased books garnering honors such as the 1994 Washington Edpress Excellence in Print Award. He has also received top teacher awards from the Oklahoma and the American Psychological Associations. He came from medical school, the State University of New York Health Sciences Center at Brooklyn, to OSU to work with a variety of subjects and disciplines. He found in OSU a place that supplies him with apt pupils and the freedom to do his research. A popular teacher, Abramson teaches by involving students in his research, an approach that has taken his students from Stillwater’s red dirt to Brazil’s rain forests. Part of Abramson’s focus is to teach his students to be more critical of research so they will recognize innovation. He encourages his students to question him, albeit respectfully. “I don’t think we teach students how to think, how to take this data and ask critical questions, like ‘where does this data come from,’” he says, noting his goal is to reverse the trend. His students have gone on to careers as diverse as Abramson’s research. One is a professor who studies the behavior of rattlesnakes. Another studies how to teach people to fly airplanes, while yet another makes toys for elephants. “Hands-on research and challenging students to question data is the way to students get interested,” he says. Matt Elliott Regents Professor Charles Abramson, shown here with student Andrew Mixson, tend Abramson’s bees at his home outside Stillwater. Gary Lawson Regents Professor Charles Abramson is a psychologist, but he’s not likely to ask about his patients’ relationships with their parents. College of Arts and Sciences 18
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