Two-day celebration features keynote address, presentation of teaching awards
As dean of the College at Brown, Harriet W. Sheridan was troubled by the fact that becoming a college professor required no teaching experience.
So 10 years ago Sheridan focused her energy on creating a center that would offer practical knowledge to Brown graduate teaching assistants who wanted to improve their classroom style.
A decade after she founded the Center for the Advancement of College Teaching, and five years after her death, the center has been renamed for the dedicated and far-sighted woman. A two-day event will celebrate The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, beginning with a keynote address, "A Scholarship of Teaching for Higher Education," by Lee S. Shulman, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The address on Friday, Oct. 24, in the Salomon Center for Teaching begins at 6:30 p.m. and will be followed by the presentation of the first Harriet W. Sheridan Teaching Awards.
On Saturday, Oct. 25, a conference on teaching and learning in higher education will offer a variety of workshops and a panel discussion.
Although its purpose has never wavered, the center has grown since Sheridan first gathered together a group of Brown graduate students in October 1987.
At the age of 62 and battling cancer, Sheridan began a series of Saturday workshops for graduate teaching assistants on strategies for teaching. She wanted teachers to recognize diverse learning styles in students and to gear their instruction to help students realize their own potential.
"The inspiration for the center came from a commitment to undergraduate education," said Nancy Dunbar, the center's director and chairwoman of the Department of Theater, Speech and Dance. "It has grown from a modest mission with graduate students to services for the entire Brown teaching community."
The center now offers a full-year program of lectures, workshops and consultation services addressing interdisciplinary issues for faculty, graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants.
Physics Professor Robert Pelcovitis sought direction from the the center after 17 years at Brown.
At the time, Pelcovitis had begun teaching a large lecture class and did not think he was sparking students' interest. The entry-level course was attended mainly by students who needed it to enter medical school, and they did not necessarily enjoy the subject, he said.
The center videotaped Pelcovitis lecturing to the class. When Pelcovitis brought the tape home to show his family, "my wife fell asleep."
On the advice of the center's consultants, Pelcovitis began to revise the way he taught, asking questions of the students in class and breaking them into groups to answer them. The initial feedback from students has been positive, said Pelcovitis: "I feel like I've permanently broken out of my mold."
Sheridan's commitment to improve teaching was spawned both by her professional experience as a professor of English at Carleton College in Minnesota and her personal experience with a daughter who had a learning disability, according to Rebecca S. More of the center. "Beginning with her understanding of her daughter's difficulty, she turned to higher education, where she determined that not only one teaching style was effective," said More.
Those who backed Sheridan's idea to create the center a decade ago still remember their reasons today.
Among supporters for the idea were former President Howard W. Swearer, former Provost Maurice Glicksman, and former Dean of the Graduate School Phillip Stiles. Financial support was provided by Artemis A. Joukowsky and Professor Martha S. Joukowsky.
Joukowsky, now Brown's chancellor, said he pledged to help establish the center after Sheridan won him over to the idea at a lunch meeting. "She spoke with her usual animated and enthusiastic style about the urgent need to provide support and training for those who had the responsibility to teach," Joukowsky recalls. "She made it clear that teachers must convey not only the fruits of their scholarship but they must do it in a competent manner with fervor, dedication, zest and spirit.
"Her message has not been lost, but has instead gained strength and momentum."