Department Teaching Excellence Award Goes To …

The Department of Languages, Philosophy and Speech Communication at Utah State University received the school’s top teaching award for 2006, the Department Teaching Excellence Award. Presented Friday, March 31, the award recognizes outstanding teaching throughout an entire department.

USU President Stan Albrecht, joined by members of the selection committee, presented the award.

During the Department Teaching Excellence Award process, departments across campus are encouraged to showcase their commitment to fostering an environment of teaching excellence by applying for the award.

“Excellence in teaching and learning must be recognized,” said Gary Straquadine, USU’s vice provost for academic and faculty services. “We can reduce mediocrity by rewarding excellence.”

In addition to recognizing outstanding teaching, the award has financial rewards as well. The annual award adds $10,000 to the department’s base budget, plus a one-time increment of $5,000. The department is also recognized during spring commencement exercises, and faculty members from the honored department are asked to sit together as a group during the ceremony.

“With 30 faculty members, five separate majors and five stand-alone minors and a graduate program, the Department of Languages, Philosophy and Speech Communication is surely one of the most complex on campus,” the department’s award citation reads. “Its faculty members have many different approaches to teaching — some traditional and others more revolutionary — but they all have found effective ways to introduce Utah State University students to worlds that are far more complex, diverse and challenging than any they had previously known.”

The range of activity that takes place in the department is equally diverse, the citation continued.

“In this department one will find students learning Russian grammar, writing Japanese calligraphy, studying Aristotle, discussing medieval French literature (in French), analyzing cross-cultural differences, designing communication studies and experiments, reading Nietzsche, building straw-bale homes in Mexico, performing plays in German, thinking through ethical issues raised by biotechnology, giving public speeches and editing online professional journals in Spanish literature.”

The Department Teaching Excellence Award was first presented in spring 2003, and seven departments have received the award in the past four years. The Geology Department and the Political Science Department received the award the first year. The departments of English and Accounting were 2004 honorees and in 2005 the award went to the Department of Chemistry/Biochemistry and the Department of Physics.

In 2006, eight departments were considered in the first round. Four finalists were selected, including the Department of Biological and Irrigation Engineering, the Plants, Soils and Biometeorology Department, the Psychology Department and the Department of Languages, Philosophy and Speech Communication.

 

A review and selection committee surveyed all applications and made the final recommendation. The final decision was based on a submitted portfolio and teaching observations. Thirteen courses were observed from each of the finalist departments.

Members of the selection committee included John Seiter (chair), Janet Anderson (chair-elect), Doug Harris (faculty), Julie Foust (faculty), Steve Burr (faculty), Tom Schroeder (faculty) Josh Kerkmann (undergraduate student), Hailey Ferrara (undergraduate student), Mannie Marinello (undergraduate student), Jeff Wu (graduate student), Jeri Brunson (graduate student), Tara Gibbons (representing the vice president for information technology office), Gary Straquadine (provost’s office), Brent Nyman (board of trustees) and Christina Palmer (provost’s office).