OSU cheese whiz receives national teaching award

This summer Dr. Lisbeth Goddik received the Milk Industry Foundation Teaching Award in Dairy Manufacturing from the American Dairy Science Association, recognizing her outstanding teaching of undergraduate students.

Holder of the Oregon Dairy Industries-Bodyfelt Professorship in OSU's Department of Food Science and Technology, Goddik is playing a leading role in nurturing Oregon's burgeoning artisan cheese industry.

The technical assistance Goddik provides and the students she educates are bringing this industry to a new level of sophistication — and the results are showing. In August an Oregon blue cheese bested more than 1,300 other competitors nationwide to win top honors for the first time at the American Cheese Society's annual conference.

Goddik recently shifted her teaching style to a no-lecture approach. Instead, her students are expected to study before class and come prepared with questions. Class time is devoted to discussion, group projects, and analysis of case studies.

When Goddik joined OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences in 1999, Oregon's cheese industry was dominated by a few big operations — think Tillamook — but today the number of small-scale specialty cheese makers has grown from two to 20.

Goddik dreams of securing funding to expand the college's pilot plant, allowing it to produce up to 1,500 pounds of OSU specialty cheese per day. Other plans call for adding an applied business center where students would learn the retail end of the industry.

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