Mark Jacobs, who guided and developed Barrett, The Honors College as its dean of 19 years and professor, School of Life Sciences, is the recipient of the 2022 Faculty Teaching Achievement Award. 

For 19 years, Mark Jacobs has been the dean of Barrett, The Honors College and a professor in the School of Life Sciences. 

Arriving in the fall of 2003 from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where he held an endowed chair in biology, was chair of the Biology Department and associate provost of the college, Jacobs has conceptualized and developed the honors college into what is recognized as the most evolved and best resourced honors college in the nation and in the world. His most significant accomplishments include having the vision to see Barrett as a residential college that competes with the top private schools and offers so much more because of the diversity, choices of research and educational resources at a large public research university — truly a “public college of scholars.”

Part of the college is the nine-acre Barrett Tempe complex encompassing full honors facilities, including classrooms, dining and community spaces, residence halls and faculty and staff offices. Under Jacobs’ leadership, it has become a vibrant, innovative residential and academic micro-campus that serves as a model for honors colleges across the country. And Barrett has expanded to foster thriving honors communities on all four of ASU’s campuses. 

Jacobs was also instrumental in the development of the Barrett Office of Global Initiatives, the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development and a Barrett Honors online presence.

A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, Jacobs is the author of more than 50 publications on the physiological and molecular control of plant development and for 12 years was associate editor-in-chief of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, an international plant science journal.

He will be remembered as the architect of Barrett and its community, who brought a deep understanding of its students and their needs on intellectual, social and cultural levels — and ultimately as the driving force in establishing what is considered the gold standard of honors colleges