Charles Gallmeier has been teaching for over 20 years, and he still gets the butterflies at the beginning of every semester.

It's not anxiety—it's the thrill of doing what he loves to do that creates that fluttering feeling. "Boy, I belong in the classroom," says Gallmeier, IU Northwest associate professor of sociology and chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. "Teaching gives me a wonderful sense of helping people empower themselves."

And it shows. Gallmeier has received numerous teaching awards during his career, including the 2001 IU President's Award for Teaching Excellence, the 2000-2001 Board of Trustees Teaching Award, and the 1997 IU Northwest Founders Day Teaching Award.

A noted scholar whose research interests include urban drug use and the language of professional hockey players, Gallmeier funnels his passion for the field straight to his students, injecting the classroom with humor, storytelling, and above all, a sense of community. By encouraging interaction and dialogue, Gallmeier creates a noisy classroom where students discuss hot-button issues like homosexuality and racism.

Gallmeier takes his talents beyond the IU Northwest campus as well. He teaches for IU Northwest's Swingshift College, an outreach program offering classes in local steel mills.

Whether they are freshmen or mill workers, Charles Gallmeier has the same hope for all his students. "My ultimate goal as a teacher is to show students that things are not always what they appear to be," says Gallmeier. "When they walk out of my class 16 weeks later, I hope they don't see the world the same way as when they walked in."