Faculty receive awards for teaching excellence

by Lew Harris

During his final Board of Trust luncheon, Vanderbilt Chancellor Joe B. Wyatt announced the winners of seven annual faculty awards for excellence and outstanding achievement. Wyatt will retire at the end of July.

Wyatt, who established Chairs of Teaching Excellence in 1993 to recognize outstanding classroom teaching, announced on April 28 that this year's recipients are Leonard Folgarait, professor of fine arts and chair of the department, and Terence Dermody, associate professor of pediatrics and associate professor of microbiology and immunology in the School of Medicine. Chairs of Teaching Excellence carry three-year, nonrenewable terms and a $10,000 annual salary supplement. The recipients also become leaders in the effort to foster quality teaching at Vanderbilt.

Folgarait also received the Alumni Education Award, given each year to a faculty member who contributed substantially to developing or participating in those programs of the Vanderbilt Alumni Association that further the education of alumni. The award consists of a cash prize of $2,500 and an engraved julep cup.

Wyatt also announced that this year's winner of the Madison Sarratt Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching is Malcolm Getz, associate professor of economics. The Ellen Gregg Ingalls Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching was presented to John Sloop, assistant professor of communication studies. The Sarratt and Ingalls awards, among the highest honors that a Vanderbilt faculty member can earn, each carry with them an engraved pewter cup and a cash award of $2,500.

Wyatt presented the Alexander Heard Distinguished Service Professorship for "distinctive contributions to the understanding of problems of contemporary society" to Hugh Davis Graham, the Holland N. McTyeire Professor of History and professor of political science. Graham received an engraved silver tray and a $2,500 award.

Wyatt announced that the Harvie Branscomb Distinguished Professor winner is Lawrence J. Marnett, the Mary Geddes Stahlman Chair in Cancer Research, professor of biochemistry and professor of chemistry. The Branscomb Distinguished Professor holds the title for one academic year and receives an engraved silver tray and a prize of $2,500. The award recognizes an individual faculty member for "distinguished accomplishment in furthering the aims of Vanderbilt University."

Following is a brief listing of the winners' professional
accomplishments as they relate to their respective awards:

Leonard Folgarait

Chair of Teaching Excellence, Alumni Education Award

As a teacher in the field of art history, his classes are relatively large -- but his classroom evaluations are among the highest of any candidate for this award. His evaluations are full of the comments that every faculty member hopes to read: "Best teacher I've ever had." Even his colleagues are impressed. Visitors to his lectures noted his "robust intellectual framework," his "sheer artistry" and his "awesome" ability to hold an audience in his lectures. Folgarait's teaching project will address how visual images can be used in teaching.

Terence Dermody dermody

Chair of Teaching Excellence

Wyatt called Dermody "a person of energy and optimism" with "a love of teaching in every setting, from the classroom to the bedside." Dermody believes knowledge is not static because the human body, society and disease are in a dynamic state. Wyatt said Dermody is "a dedicated researcher who uses his laboratory as a foundation for his teaching." Dermody has mentored seven Ph.D. students, three M.D./Ph.D. students, and six postdoctoral fellows since joining the Vanderbilt faculty in 1990. In one class, 97 percent of his students gave him the highest marks on his evaluations over a period of years. He also developed an innovative course on "Practicing Caring Medicine for AIDS Patients."

Malcom Getz Getz, Malcolm

Madison Sarratt Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

Getz, who received his B.A. from Williams and a Ph.D. in economics from Yale, joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1973 and has served as director of the Jean and Alexander Heard Library and associate provost. For the past nine years, he has used an electronic classroom in which every student has full-time use of a computer during class. He was one of the first teachers at Vanderbilt to do that, and his practice has been widely duplicated by others. He is the director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics and Business Administration, and has authored three research monographs, a textbook and 40 essays on issues in libraries.

John Sloop Sloop, John

Ellen Gregg Ingalls Award

Calling Sloop "one of the most gifted young faculty members at Vanderbilt," Wyatt noted that he has distinguished himself as a great teacher and a prolific scholar over the past five years. "His students are equally enthusiastic about his enthusiasm and the rigor of his courses," Wyatt said. "He is an avid consumer and user of the latest online teaching techniques and demands that his students participate in them too -- which they do." Sloop also forgoes the assistance of a grader, preferring to read each paper and exam submitted by the students in his large classes. He graduated from Appalachian State University, received his master's degree from the University of Georgia and earned a Ph.D. in communications studies from the University of Iowa. He joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1995.

Hugh Davis Graham Graham, Hugh Davis

Alexander Heard Distinguished Service Professor

Graham is a scholar of many critical issues of post-war America, including civil rights, crime and violence; the rise of the South as perhaps the most important region in the country; and education policy from preschools to the research university. He is the author of numerous articles, chapters and books, including The Civil Rights Era, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1991. He is also a popular teacher at the undergraduate and graduate levels, receiving the 1999 Madison Sarratt Prize. Perhaps Graham's contributions are best summarized by one of his colleagues, who wrote: "He is someone who adds luster to Vanderbilt, someone who has exemplified in a most convincing way what this institution stands for."

Lawrence J. Marnett Marne

Harvie Branscomb Distinguished Professor

Marnett is a gifted teacher, who has twice been chosen among the top five teachers by first-year medical students. Considered a world-class researcher and scholar, Marnett has contributed immensely to the fight against cancer through his work at the intersection of chemistry and biology. Wyatt noted that Marnett's ground-breaking research on anti-inflammatory drugs has directly led to the development of the new "superaspirin." Marnett is regarded as a tenacious and creative administrator, who helped found the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and today serves as its associate director for research programs.