Six full-time professors and two junior professors just received a $3,000 “job well done.”

The University’s Teaching Recognition Awards is sponsored by the Meredith Professors, tenured professors who are recognized by the university as outstanding educators. The Meredith Professors gave the $3,000 expense accounts to eight professors who exemplify excellence in undergraduate instruction.

The eight that were finally chosen came from a group of about 40 applicants that were submitted in December, said organizer and Meredith Professor Sari Knopp Biklen.

“It was really difficult,” Biklen said. “There were a lot of great applications.”

The idea for the awards came from a group of Meredith Professors. They thought that the award could serve as a way for non-tenured instructors to be recognized, Biklen added.

This is the second year of the awards.

One of the winners, assistant professor of history, J. Michael Gaddis, said he is just glad that people like his teaching.

The key to successful teaching is trying to engage your students, he said.

“I want to make things come alive,” Gaddis said. “Get inside the heads of people that lived thousands of years ago.”

Another winner, professor Tracy Knight, said that teachers are in powerful positions because they hold the most powerful resource in the world, children.

“The most important thing you need to teach is passion,” Knight said.

Knight said that she plans on buying a laptop with her $3,000.

Other winners include full-time professors Winston Grady-Willis, Jackie Orr, Jonathan Sandberg and Errol Willett. Adjunct professors Jennifer Griffin and Jeffrey Meyer also received awards.

The $3,000 expense accounts can only be used for professional research purposes.

The applications were judged by a five-person board consisting of two undergraduate students, a graduate student and three Meredith Professors: Barry Davidson, Gerald Mager and Biklen.

Chelsea King, a sophomore television, radio and film major who served on the board, said that they decided on who made the final cut in the second week of February. Although she said she had no idea what the award was at the time, she agreed to be part of the board. By the time she began reading the applications, she said she dove right in.

In one instance a glowing application had to be disqualified because the professor included too many letters of recommendation and exceeded the 25-page limit that was set.

“He got a long letter telling him to reapply next year,” King said.

Mager said that although the choices only got harder as the field narrowed, there were no easy cuts to make at the beginning either.

“Everyone was pretty good,” Mager said. “There wasn’t anyone that I said ‘Man, this guy shouldn’t have even been nominated.’”

Even with the newfound recognition and funding, Knight is not looking for too much to change in her classes.

“A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice,” Knight said.

Published on February 20, 2002 at 12:00 pm