Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology David R. Liu ’94 planned to leave last night’s Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize award ceremony early to put his 10-month-old daughter to bed. But the quality of the dessert served at the catered Eliot House event persuaded him to stay, and it was fortunate that he did: Liu, along with Professor of History Daniel Lord Smail, was awarded the senior faculty award for excellence in teaching.

The Levenson Prize is awarded each year by the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) of the Undergraduate Council to “recognize especially skilled and dedicated teachers of undergraduate courses and sections,” according to the UC’s constitution. Three prizes are awarded: one to a teaching fellow, one to a member of the junior faculty, and one to a member of the senior faculty.

Liu and Smail both received awards this year largely because of the strength of their recommendations, according to SAC Vice Chair for Undergraduate Education Matthew R. Greenfield ’08.

An awards committee within SAC chooses the recipients of the prizes based on nominations submitted by students. The winners do not receive cash prizes; instead, the money for the endowed award pays for the dinner that all nominees and student nominators are invited to attend, according to Soren R. Rosier ’10, the chair of the awards committee.

SAC received about 300 nominations for the award, and about 200 teachers and undergraduates chose to come to the event, according to Rosier.

The students who nominated Smail noted that he had created an informal “Harvard Medievalist Club” that meets for monthly dinners at Grendel’s Den, the Harvard Square basement pub, according to Greenfield. One student who nominated Liu said that he had helped her in a course where the actual professor had been unhelpful and inaccessible, Greenfield said during the ceremony.

Judith F. Chapman, an anthropology lecturer and Quincy House’s resident dean, received the Levenson award for junior faculty. Chapman often advises students after they complete a course with her, and she tailors her course syllabi to complement students’ interests, according to SAC Chair Michael R. Ragalie ’09.

Mathematics Teaching Fellow Chen-Yu Chi received his prize for his “tireless devotion” to students, Rosier said. Chi would stay until midnight to review with students the night before an exam, according to a student who recommended him.

Interim President Derek C. Bok said in his remarks last night that “providing the best and most innovative teaching we can provide” will become a matter of competitive advantage for American universities in an increasingly globalized world.

The Levenson Award memorializes Joseph R. Levenson ’41, a University of California-Berkeley professor of Chinese history who died an untimely death in a 1969 canoeing accident. His son Leo, who graduated from the College in 1983, created the award as an undergraduate as a way for students to formally award excellent teaching at Harvard. Members of the Levenson family were present at the ceremony.

—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.