Fall 1998

NEH Distinguished Teaching Professorships
Bill McAllister, Faculty Consultant, TRC and Department of History

In 1994 the Teaching Resource Center won a Special Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This grant, together with gifts to Arts and Sciences, enabled the creation of three U.Va. Distinguished Teaching Professorships (DTPs). Each endowed chair, awarded to associate or full professors for a three-year period, recognizes excellent undergraduate teaching in the humanities. As the following vignettes demonstrate, the first four DTPs have pursued a variety of innovative opportunities to enhance teaching around Grounds and beyond U.Va. Those interested in more information about the chair's duties can contact Marva Barnett, Director, Teaching Resource Center, at 982-2815 or e-mail trc-uva@virginia.edu or consult our website at: http://www.virginia.edu/~trc/. Questions about the nomination and selection process should be directed to the Associate Dean for Personnel and Planning, Arts and Sciences, at 924-3437.

Stephen Cushman, Department of English
Richard A. and Sarah Page Mayo Distinguished Teaching Professor, 1994-97
Investigating the Scholarship of Teaching: The DTP provided Steve Cushman with the opportunity to explore many different aspects of teaching. He chaired the University's Self-Study Committee on the Improvement of Teaching, which examined the state of the art on Grounds and considered ways to enhance teaching. The committee's recommendations fostered a series of University-wide conversations about teaching and contributed to launching the University Teaching Initiative (see page 1 article). Reaching beyond the Grounds, Steve fostered discussions between U.Va. English faculty and their counterparts at Virginia's community colleges about teaching English in institutions of  higher education. Steve also contributed to the national conversation about  training  English  teachers,  leading a team of Charlottesville representatives to the Modern Language Association's Teacher Education Project. Steve disseminated his experience both locally and nationally, offering departmental and TRC-sponsored workshops, presenting at conferences, and penning several publications, including an Occasional Paper for the TRC entitled "A Teacher's Attention." The DTP also caused Steve to pursue his interest in team teaching, which has proved a fruitful and challenging endeavor. He has team taught courses with colleagues from both English and other departments, and has developed and disseminated his thinking on that issue as well. During his tenure as a Fellow, Steve reflected on the craft of teaching, arriving at a new appreciation of the responsibilities, complexities, and multifaceted opportunities that require a teacher's attention.

Herbert (Tico) Braun, Department of History
Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Distinguished Teaching Professor, 1996-99
Taking it to the Streets: Tico Braun has utilized his DTP to reach out to a wide variety of audiences. This year, with assistance from a University Teaching Initiative grant, he will supervise an extensive TA training program for the History Department. In conjunction with Edward L. Ayers, Hugh P. Kelly Professor of History, the Global Studies Program, and the Division of Continuing Education, the DTP enabled Tico to organize a series of summer institutes that brought together history professors from around Virginia and high school teachers from across the country. He also created a special program for middle-school students at Charlottesville's Village School that placed local cultural and economic practices in their global context. Tico plans to conduct similar workshops in future years for Virginia secondary school teachers. In all those endeavors, Tico has sought to create a diverse scholarly environment in which individuals can exchange ideas, learn from one another, and think about large issues that history instructors at all levels encounter. He employs U.Va. faculty from many disciplines in his projects, orchestrating their talents to expand the perspectives of all participants. The DTP provided new opportunities to advance his enduring objective: to infuse historical thinking into people's everyday lives, empowering teachers and students by helping them recognize the connections between the local and the global, between the past, present, and future, between themselves and the world around them.

Benjamin Ray, Department of Religious Studies
Daniels Family Distinguished Teaching Professorship, 1997-2000
DTP as fulcrum: Ben Ray sees the DTP as an opportunity both to expand many existing activities and to develop new initiatives. Ben helped inaugurate, and now chairs, his department's teaching committee. He has promoted teaching issues as Chair of the Faculty Senate Academic Affairs Committee, which included overseeing a newly funded University Teaching Initiative program . The DTP has also enabled Ben to extend his innovative work incorporating technology in the classroom. Building on experience garnered as a Teaching + Technology Initiative Fellow, he involves undergraduates in web-based projects such as student-created displays of African art or making primary research materials electronically accessible. To reach a wider audience Ben has published several essays on using technology in the classroom. His reputation for eliciting high-quality accomplishments from students spurred the National Museum of African Art to discuss with him the possibility of having U.Va. undergraduates collaborate in creating a national clearinghouse for images and information pertaining to the study of African art. Next year he plans to organize a conference focusing on teaching religion and other humanistic subjects in the 21st century. The DTP has provided Ben the time to consider how to meld the scholarly enterprises of teaching and research, to envision new possibilities, and to speak to new audiences. By linking his previous work to future endeavors, Ben continues his quest to demonstrate the importance of scholarship in the everyday lives of ordinary people.

Richard Warner, Department of Drama
Richard A. and Sarah Page Mayo Distinguished Teaching Professor, 1998-2001
Making Connections: Richard Warner plans to use his DTP to consider larger issues surrounding liberal education in the 21st century. He will focus initially on the introductory Drama 202 course, its equivalents around the state, and at nationally-known higher education institutions, studios, and conservatories. He plans to assess theory and practice of introductory training in his discipline by examining methodologies, exercises, assignments, readings, projects, technology use, and attentiveness to an increasingly diverse undergraduate audience. Richard intends to coordinate a statewide conference session for drama departments to discuss what role performance training plays in a liberal education. Richard also expects to carry the conversation beyond his discipline by examining the similarities in introductory training across the humanities. Cognizant that most students who pass through introductory courses will choose to major in something else, Richard wants to advance the conversation about what common purposes introductory classes are intended to fill, and how different disciplines pursue those goals. Ultimately, Richard will utilize the DTP as a vehicle to help U.Va. faculty explore how an integrative approach to the liberal arts can benefit the personal and professional development of all students.