Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

Six receive honors for their `commitment to reflective teaching'

Six people from Brown have been honored by the Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning for their "ongoing commitment to reflective teaching as an integral part of the enterprise of higher education."

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning has honored six members of the Brown community for their "ongoing commitment to reflective teaching as an integral part of the enterprise of higher education." The recipients of the first Harriet W. Sheridan Awards for Distinguished Contribution to Teaching and Learning at Brown, presented Oct. 25, are:

• Elizabeth D. Kirk, the Israel J. Kapstein Professor of English and professor of comparative literature;
• Susan Smulyan, associate professor of American civilization;
• Stanley K. Stowers, professor of religious studies;
• John L. Thomas, the George L. Littlefield Professor of American History;
• William F. Wyatt Jr., professor of classics;
• Rebecca More, who was assistant director of the center from 1990-92, acting director from 1992-94, and associate director since 1994.

The Sheridan Center honored the six for their "ongoing attention to the improvement of individual undergraduate and/or graduate instruction, support of departmental initiatives to develop and implement programs which actively encourage teaching within their discipline by both faculty, graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants, and support for University-wide initiatives which seek to integrate teaching and research."

These recipients, according to the Sheridan Center, "were the prime movers at a critical moment in the history of the development" of the center, and their commitment to the center helped sustain it in the years following the September 1992 death of the center's founder, Harriet Sheridan, former dean of the College. "They served as leaders in their departments under the Association of American Colleges project which ultimately transformed what had been a small agency producing a series of five lectures on pedagogy per year into a center which provides a wide variety of services, programs and publications for the benefit of the entire Brown teaching community, not to mention the students themselves."

Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

As dean of the College at Brown University, the late Harriet W. Sheridan was troubled by an irony of American higher education: Becoming a college professor requires no teaching experience. Shortly after her retirement as dean, Sheridan addressed that concern by founding the Center for the Advancement of College Teaching at Brown to offer practical knowledge and training for university-level teaching.

Now a decade old, the center was renamed for its founder in the summer of 1997 and was rededicated Oct. 24, 1997.

When the center opened, it targeted graduate students because they are the future professoriate. The programs have since expanded to include the entire Brown teaching community, from undergraduate teaching assistants to veteran professors. Professors can receive individual teaching consultations and attend lectures and workshops on topics ranging from persuasive communication to student feedback. An orientation for new teaching assistants is offered in the fall to introduce that group to instruction at Brown, and the Sheridan Teaching Seminar for all faculty and graduate students covers such issues as developing a syllabus and promoting student dialogue.