Monday, November 13, 2000
University Council approval sought for strategic plan
Honor society presents Blue Key Award to four UGA alumni
The newly installed members of the Teaching Academy broke into small groups to discuss the next steps at the initial workshop meeting Nov. 3. Photo by Paul Efland
Embracing teaching
New Teaching Academy takes shape on campus
By Beth Roberts
beth@uga.edu

Following a year of planning by a small group of faculty, the university’s new TeachingAcademy held its first workshop-meeting Nov. 3 at Flinchum’s Phoenix. The “charter members” of the original planning group and the 52 new members discussed academy goals,
Bob Warren (forest resources) recorded his group’s ideas at the workshop. Photo by Paul Efland
plans and possibilities.
The development of “teaching academies” on the nation’s college campuses is the latest joint project of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the American Association of Higher Education. The University of Georgia was invited to participate in 1999 when the project was first initiated: UGA had been an active participant in the Carnegie Foundation’s “peer review of teaching” project, which had just been completed.
“The teaching academy idea has taken different shapes on different campuses,” says Josef Broder, a professor of agricultural and applied economics who was part of the planning group here and is this year serving as chair of the executive committee for the teaching academy. “In some ways it would have been easier to adopt one of the approaches developed at one of the other schools, but we wanted the Teaching Academy at the University of Georgia to grow out of this campus.”
The result is a broad and flexible group that aims, according to the preamble to its mission statement, to “engage the larger university community to embrace the joy, passions and rewards of teaching and learning.”
The original invitation to participate in building a teaching academy at UGA was sent in March 1999 by Tom Dyer, vice president for instruction, to Meigs and Russell Award recipients, Lilly and Senior Teaching Fellows, and Regents, Research and University Professors. Dyer’s letter of invitation described the academy as “a focal point for thoughtful and informed conversation related to UGA’s teaching mission. This body could assist the university in shaping the concept of the student-centered research university.”
Charter members of the academy were selected from those who expressed interest in the idea. They began work in October 1999, with assistance from Peter Shedd, associate vice president for instruction, and the Office of Instructional Support and Development. They spent a year developing the academy idea, discussing purposes and goals and organization.
“We disagreed on everything,” Broder says. “But eventually we came together, and what we have is unique to the University of Georgia.”
This initial phase culminated in the Nov. 3 workshop, at which the “inaugural class” of 52 additional faculty became members of the academy. They were drawn from the same group of fellows and award winners--and they were required to write an essay as part of the application process.
The workshop was called “Taking Teaching Seriously: An Agenda for the UGA Teaching Academy,” and involved small-group discussions about what the academy might now do. A list of possible “action items”--such as mentoring graduate students and new faculty, drawing on the teaching skills of retired faculty, making teaching “community property”--was developed and will form the basis of committee discussions this year. Questions of membership, governance, structure and the like will be answered as consensus develops.

Teaching Academy Charter Members
Robert L. Anderson, Arts and Sciences
Patricia Bell-Scott, Family and Consumer Sciences
Jeanne A. Barsanti, Veterinary Medicine
Josef M. Broder, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Ronald L. Carlson, Law
Joe W. Crim, Arts and Sciences
Sylvia M. Hutchinson, Institute of Higher Education
William K. Jackson, Instructional Support and Development
Patricia L. Kalivoda, Instructional Support and Development
Jeremy Kilpatrick, Education
Peter J. Shedd, Business
Frederick J. Stephenson, Business
Susette M. Talarico, Arts and Sciences

Inaugural Class
Donna E. Alvermann, reading education
Paul W. Ammons, social work
James C. Anderson, classics
Wyatt W. Anderson, Arts and Sciences
William E. Barstow, biological sciences
Michelle Henry Barton, large animal medicine
Ronald L. Bogue, comparative literature
Karen S. Calhoun, psychology
Nancy L. Canolty, foods and nutrition
Dan T. Coenen, law
Walter M. Darley, biological sciences
Delmer D. Dunn, political science
C. Ronald. Ellington, law
Conrad C. Fink, journalism
Denise Muth Glynn, teacher education
Shawn M. Glynn, professional studies
Frank R. Harrison III, philosophy
Larry L. Hatfield, teacher education
Elissa R. Henken, English
Loch K. Johnson, political science
Mary Ann Johnson, foods and nutrition
Keith J. Karnok, crop and soil sciences
Marguerite Koepke, environmental design
Dean M. Krugman, advertising and public relations
Charles R. Kutal, chemistry
David P. Landau, physics and astronomy
Stanley V. Longman, drama and theater
Brenda H. Manning, teacher education
Robert W. Matthews, entomology
Hubert H. McAlexander, English
Patrick G. McKeown, management information systems
Linda Medleau, small animal medicine
Sharan B. Merriam, leadership and lifelong learning
Charles W. Mims, plant pathology
Sherrie Nist, Academic Assistance
Clifton W. Pannell, Arts and Sciences
Sylvia J. Pannell, drama and theater
William G. Provost, English
Judith C. Reiff, teacher education
Dean G. Rojek, sociology
Theodore Shifrin, mathematics
Michele L. Simpson, Academic Assistance
Ronald D. Simpson, Institute of Higher Education
Anne L. Sweaney, housing and consumer economics
A. Thomas Taylor, pharmacy
Frances N. Teague, English
Roger K. Thomas, psychology
Glenn 0. Ware, forest resources
Robert J. Warren, forest resources
Allen G. Webb Jr., art
Fred C. White, agricultural and applied economics
Rebecca Hanner White, law
UGA Today ] News Bureau ] Master Calendar ] Columns ] Georgia Magazine ]
UGA Home ] Admissions ] Directories ] Sports ] Alumni ] Weather ]
Search this site ] Search UGA sites ]

Developed by University Communications News Bureau at the University of Georgia.
Beth Roberts: Columns editor, Juliett Dinkins: Columns managing editor,
Janet Beckley: Columns art director.
This site works best with the latest version of
Netscape Navigator 4.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0.