Distinguished Teaching Awards
Excellence in and beyond the classroom
Eight faculty have been selected as Distinguished Teaching Award winners:
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Caitlyn Allen
Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology and Women’s Studies
Steiger Award
The prospects for women to study science at UW–Madison have improved dramatically over the last few years, thanks in large part to Allen’s efforts.
In addition to teaching basic and advanced pathology courses and special topics courses for women in science, and she has provided research opportunities for 12 undergraduates in her lab. She also is developing a new course, Women and Minorities in Science, under a Lilly Fellowship. As faculty director of the Women in Science and Engineering Residential Program in Elizabeth Waters Hall, she helps unite the academic and residential lives of about 80 students.
Returning adult student Lynn Williamson greatly appreciated the way Allen took time to cover complex issues completely.
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See also: Two Madison campus faculty win System teaching awards |
“The issues included genetic engineering, pesticide use and genetic diversity,” Williamson writes. “The class discussed them from scientific, social, economic, political and historic perspectives.”
Both Allen’s department chairs, Thomas German in plant pathology and Mariamne Whatley in women’s studies, find Allen’s ability to integrate disciplines remarkable, “providing insight as both an insider and an outsider,” they observe. In addition, “she is creative in the classroom, using techniques that actively involve students in thinking about and evaluating science.”
Some of those innovations have included student-directed laboratory exercises, incorporating ethical issues into biology courses and student-hosted speakers.
On the faculty here since 1992, Allen received her Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Her B.S. is from the University of Maine-Orono.
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Marguerite Barratt
Professor of Child and Family Studies
Chancellor’s Award
A technological as well as pedagogical innovator, Barratt wrote her department’s first proposal for a distance learning course, Development of the Young Child, in 1993. Steve Small, her department chair, says Barratt “has continued to improve the course, experimenting with computer-generated slides, in-studio demonstrations with children, panel presentations, and a balanced selection of guest speakers from both the university and Madison community. She also has added a phone link that allows students to call in with questions and a Web site containing course information and class notes. The class serves as a model for how video-based distance education can be implemented successfully.”
In addition to championing the use of instructional technology, Barratt also is a researcher whose investigations into ongoing adaptations made by both parents and children have earned her widespread admiration and respect.
Barratt certainly has earned the respect of graduate student Kristine Munholland, who took Barratt’s Research Methods course: “Peg challenged us to improve our critical thinking about the research process and lead us through the development of our own small- scope research project, presentation and report. Requiring us to engage in ‘hands-on’ data collection and organize our pilot study into a final coherent presentation and manuscript provided us with valuable experience in directing, discussing and writing about research.”
Barratt has been on the Child and Family Studies faculty since 1978. She earned her Ph.D. at UW–Madison. Her M.A. and B.A. are from Michigan State.
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Robert C. Ostergren
Professor of Geography
Chancellor’s Award
A seamless mesh between teaching, research and public service responsibilities has characterized Ostergren’s two decades at UW–Madison, according to colleague David Woodward.
“Undergraduates typically mention how Professor Ostergren made history and geography relevant to their lives,” he says.
Undergraduate Jason Geise took Ostergren’s course, Environmental Conservation, last semester. “The ideas ignited in my mind about our environment will be with me for the rest of my life,” he says, “in no small part because of the enthusiasm and example set by Professor Ostergren’s teaching.” For example, Ostergren asked students in Geise’s class to assume characters in fictional Mesa County, an area devastated following the creation of a protective habitat for the endangered spotted owl.
Ostergren’s teaching talents also have come together in the instruction of teachers, notably in the College of Letters and Science’s Teaching Assistant Training Program. “Through his role in the formative years of the L&S TA Training Program, Bob’s teaching has had an effect on many more undergraduates than a single faculty member could reach through his own classes,” says Judith S. Craig, associate L&S dean. “He has provided invaluable assistance in the training of the future professorate.”
One of Ostergren’s own TAs, Anne Knowles, now a Mellon Fellow at Wellesley College, recalls him as a meticulous scholar as well as a superb teacher. “His extremely high standards for research and writing made me aim as high as I could,” she says.
Ostergren earned his own Ph.D., as well as his M.A. and B.A., from the University of Minnesota.
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Jane S. Schacter
Associate Professor of Law
Chancellor’s Award
When Schacter arrived on the law school faculty seven years ago, she had no teaching experience whatsoever. Nonetheless, her students awarded her rave classroom reviews from the very beginning, remembers Kenneth B. Davis, dean of the law school.
Schacter’s considerable teaching load includes Civil Procedure, Administrative Law, Statutory Interpretation and the Democratic Ideal, Legislation, and Sexual Orientation and the Law. Indeed, Schacter was principal organizer of the first-ever national workshop on teaching and scholarship regarding sexuality and the law, and faculty and students at other institutions who are interested in creating courses on the topic consult her regularly.
Law school colleague John A. Kidwell, Haight Professor of Law, observed Schacter in action in the classroom, and in particular noticed her precise method for holding students’ attention: “She began the class with a brief lecture which served as a transition to the principal topic. She briefly summarized the last unit, calling attention to what she believed students should have learned from it. She then proceeded to explain how it related to other themes which had been explored in earlier classes. The ability to create these connections between material that students otherwise would see as unrelated is one of the critical features of good law school teaching,” he says.
But Schacter didn’t stop there. Kidwell remembers she then asked for volunteers in examining variations on a hypothetical age discrimination case. “She clearly created an atmosphere in which active participation was the norm,” he says.
Schacter graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, and earned an A.B. with highest honors from the University of Michigan.
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Jolanda Vanderwal Taylor
Associate Professor of German
Chancellor’s Award “Cheese. Toleration.
“Wonder why?”
This parody of the Sci-Fi Channel tagline appeared as an advertisement in The Onion. This innovative invitation to the Department of German’s Dutch program is one of the many fresh approaches Taylor has taken to scholarship. One of the Department of German’s two Dutch language and literature specialists, Taylor is “a department unto herself,” says department chair Donald Becker.
On the permanent faculty since 1988, Taylor has been instrumental in developing the department’s Dutch program, Becker says. She also has expanded the department’s and the program’s reach through use of instructional technology. For example, this semester one of the department’s Dutch culture courses featured its own Web site. A digital camera will enhance vocabulary-building through images; last year, she designed an instructional Web site for third-semester Dutch. In 1993, she executed a pilot program to incorporate e-mail into the department’s curriculum.
However, Taylor’s contributions have gone far beyond her classroom. She also hosts a weekly conversation table and has developed a university study-abroad program to the Netherlands.
Taylor earned a Ph.D. and M.A. at Cornell University; her B.A. is from Wheaton College.
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Susanne Lindgren Wofford
Associate Professor of English
Chancellor’s Award
Every year, upwards of 2,500 students on campus and in Madison high schools see a CLASSACT performance of a play they are studying. Founded by Wofford, theatre and drama colleague Karen Ryker, and former theatre and drama chair Jill Dolan in 1992, the CLASSACT actors, who are theatre and drama students, present different interpretations of the same scene to dramatize the richness — and ambiguity — of the scripts. During the past academic year, CLASSACT has presented scenes from Greek drama, Shakespeare and contemporary theater to classes in more than a dozen academic departments and in three high schools.
In the classroom, Wofford teaches popular undergraduate and graduate courses in Shakespearean, Renaissance, Elizabethan and epic literature. As director of the English department’s graduate program since 1995, Wofford has helped to engineer major reforms that made the department’s Ph.D. examination system more flexible and encouraged more open exchange and dialogue between students and faculty.
According to graduate student Cora Fox, Wofford also has used her position to make the Department of English more welcoming to students of color: In addition to recruiting directly from historically black colleges, Wofford has supported strongly the Bridge Program between the departments of English and Afro-American Studies. The program allows master’s degree candidates specializing in literature through Afro-American studies to continue their Ph.D. work in the English department.
Wofford’s pedagogical influence extends far beyond Madison. Last year, for example, she took part in a new Modern Language Association radio program on Shakespeare. The series aired on National Public Radio in May 1997.
Wofford received her Ph.D., M.Phil. and B.A. with honors from Yale University and has a B.Phil. from Oxford University. She joined the UW–Madison faculty in 1992, after teaching at Yale for 10 years.
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C. Allen Wortley
Professor of Engineering Professional Development
Van Hise Outreach Award
At the “helm” of more than 250 UW–Madison continuing engineering education conferences, institutes and technical short courses (including one on small-craft harbor and marina development), Wortley has distinguished himself in creating, integrating, transferring and applying knowledge.
Fred Walstrom, president of Walstrom Marine in Harbor Springs, Mich., has been attending the aforementioned Small Docks and Marina course for 20 years, and attests to Wortley’s skill: “Through this program, Allen Wortley has provided me a life-long learning opportunity in my field,” he says.
Daniel S. Natchez, president of Daniel S. Natchez and Associates, Inc. in Mamaronek, N.Y., presented a paper at one of Wortley’s satellite conferences. Natchez says the experience was as illuminating for him as it was for the students. “With over 30 sites and 350 participants, we reached a wide diversity of students from marina managers to professionals to regulations and people employed in various government agencies. The format provided a dialogue with the audience from around the country. Professor Wortley is a shining example of one who continually seeks thought-provoking ways to reach out and touch those who are not traditional students.”
Despite his teaching prowess, his Van Hise Award is not Wortley’s only recent honor. Last year, the Wisconsin Society of Professional Engineers named him its Professional Engineer of the Year. He also won the American Society of Engineers’ Harold R. Peyton Award for Cold Region Engineering.
A member of the UW–Madison faculty since 1974, Wortley’s research specialties include construction engineering and management, geotechnical and structural engineering, and distance education, in addition to small-craft harbor and marina management. He earned a P.D. (professional development) degree from UW–Madison; his M.S. is from the California Institute of Technology and his B.S. from Antioch College.
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Erik Olin Wright
Professor of Sociology
Chancellor’s Award
Wright teaches overload classes for free again and again — and much to the amazement of his department chair Charles Halaby. To Halaby, this “crude but telling test” confirms Wright’s dedication to teaching.
A specialist in the economic sociology and sociological theory, Wright teaches classes from a basic freshman course in Contemporary American Society to upper-level graduate seminars in theory and the analysis of social class. Not only does he teach them, he also initiated them. Several of Wright’s pedagogical creations comprise the department’s program in economic sociology, ranked one of the best in the country by U.S. News and World Report.
Wright also is responsible for the Havens Center Speakers Series, which each year brings scholars from around the world to Madison for a week of lectures and seminars. Recent visiting scholars have considered such topics as rethinking family values, the Japanese economy and the relationship between social justice and inequality.
Says Halaby, “Professor Wright does not produce audio-visual aids, write clever software, give workshops on teaching and does not write textbooks. All of these are valuable parts of the teaching enterprise, but they are not what Wright’s contributions are about. Professor Wright makes his influence on students felt the old-fashioned way. He creates courses of extraordinary depth where none existed before; he creates coherent programs of study where none existed before; he gives lectures of uncommon power and vigor; and he devotes huge amounts of intellectual energy to engaging the ideas of his students and providing them the constructive guidance they need to improve their work.”
Wright, on the UW–Madison faculty since 1976, received a Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley. He earned B.A.s with honors from Harvard and Oxford.