Month: July 2010

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Exercise science professor Kirk Abraham, biology professor Belinda Sly and writing, rhetoric, and communication professor Scott Whiddon have received Transylvania’s highest teaching honor—The Bingham Award for Excellence in Teaching. The recipients are selected by a committee composed of distinguished professors from leading liberal arts colleges and universities across the country. The Bingham Program is unique among faculty incentive programs in that it rewards superior teaching rather than research and its awards are substantial. Recipients receive annual salary supplements for five years and are then reevaluated for annual fellowships for up to 20 years. Abraham, who was also granted tenure and promoted to associate professor, joined the Transylvania faculty in 2004 and holds a Ph.D. in physiology form the University of Missouri. He employs a hands-on method of teaching that is designed to keep the students involved. He said he’s learned today’s students expect more interaction with their professors to stay engaged. “I try to put myself back in the students’ shoes, which is getting harder to do all the time as I’m getting older, and help them walk through the stages of learning the material,” he said. “They tend to expect a lot of feedback, and that’s something I’ve learned to give more of as the years go by.” Sly, who was also granted tenure and promoted to associate professor, has been at Transy since 2004. She came to Lexington after getting her Ph.D. in molecular, cellular and developmental

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University, an early leader in liberal arts education, will host the annual faculty seminar titled” Twenty-first Century Liberal Education: A Contested Concept,” July 15-18. The 17 seminar participants were selected from a pool of applicants from prominent liberal arts colleges throughout the country. They reflect the diversity within the professorate at liberal arts colleges and include faculty members from Pomona, Smith, Middlebury, Washington and Lee, St. John’s, Asbury and Earlham. Seminar sessions include “The Historical Background to the Contemporary Debates,” “The Classical Tradition in the 20th Century: Robert Maynard Hutchins,” “The Rival Tradition: John Dewey,” “The Classical Tradition Redux: Allan Bloom” and “The Purposes of Liberal Education: Varieties of Individual Development.” Participants are asked to consider the application of liberal education principles to enhance their own effectiveness as college and university teachers – in the classroom, in the preparation of course offerings and in the construction of curricula at their academic institutions. John Seery, George Irving Thompson Memorial Professor of Government and professor of politics at Pomona College, will give the opening address, “The Liberal Arts as a Coal Mine: Assessing the Canary’s Cough.” The plenary speaker is Randall Bartlett, professor of economics at Smith College. His address is titled “Liberal Education in a Technological Age.” Through this seminar, Transylvania University and its Bingham Program for Excellence in Teaching seeks to contribute to a national conversation on the idea of liberal education and the mission of the liberal

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