Four of the five nominees for The Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence come from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences this year. The award is one of the most important and prestigious traditions at UNC Charlotte, as it honors outstanding teachers and demonstrates the university’s commitment to excellence in teaching. Last fall, the university community nominated over 100 eligible nominees for the 2014 award. The finalists are:
- Anita Blowers, Criminal Justice and Criminology
- Jonathan Crane, Communication Studies
- Fumie Kato, Languages and Culture Studies
- Debra C. Smith, Africana Studies
- Tracy Rock, Reading and Elementary Education (in the College of Education)
The 2014 recipient will be announced at the Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence Ceremony the evening of Friday, September 5, at Founders Hall. Last year’s recipient was Kimberly Buch of the Department of Psychology (pictured); the previous year’s recipient was Joanne Robinson of the Department of Religious Studies. Almost 70 percent of the recipients since 1968 have been faculty in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Here is more information on this year’s finalists from CLAS.
Anita Blowers, associate professor, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology
According to Blowers, “If we want our students to become productive members in an increasingly complex society, we must move away from focusing exclusively on passively transmitting information and move towards providing an environment where students are co-collaborators of their educational experience.”
Blowers joined the Department of Criminal Justice in 1989, and she has been affiliated with the Gerontology Program and the Ph.D. in Public Policy Program. In 2013, she led the Justice Studies Abroad Program at Kingston University in England. Blowers has taught a wide range of courses at multiple levels: criminal justice policy, prosecution and adjudication, American criminal courts, and crime and justice in film. Her pedagogical approach emphasizes the use of active learning strategies where students are encouraged to solve problems, answer questions, formulate questions of their own, discuss, explain, debate or brainstorm during class.
Employing cooperative learning strategies, in which students work in teams on problems and projects to foster more collaborative learning, Blowers argues that the professor coaches students in the skills they need to learn independently and from one another, creating an environment where student and professor are both stakeholders.
This innovative approach is not lost on her students. One senior criminal justice major wrote Blowers “assumes the identity of a ‘coach,’ always pushing and encouraging her students to produce exceptional work. Due to her unwavering devotion to her research and her students’ successes, Dr. Blowers has received my admiration, appreciation, and deepest gratitude. ”
According to colleague Vivian Lord, Blowers has a “footprint on a wide range of University initiatives that have helped to create an environment where students can achieve academic and personal success.” She has served as the director of the Office of Student Success and Retention, as a faculty fellow in the Provost’s Office and as a McNair Program mentor.
Within the Freshman Seminar Program, Blowers helped lead the effort to expand the number and variety of freshman seminar courses; created the faculty development program for faculty teaching freshman seminar courses; assisted in the development of measures and procedures for assessment of the UNC Charlotte Learning Community programs; and developed and taught a course for freshman seminar peer mentors.
For her outstanding contributions to teaching and learning at UNC Charlotte, Blowers was awarded the R. Randy Rice Service Award in 2004 to recognize her contributions to the Learning Community Program at UNC Charlotte. In 2001, she received the UNC Charlotte Student Support Services Award.
Jonathan Crane, associate professor, Department of Communication Studies
Crane arrived on campus in 1988 to help forge a new Communication Studies Department. At the time, communication studies was a minor in the English Department. Over time, and with the collaboration of a dedicated team of faculty, Crane played a significant role in transforming a collective dream into a thriving, award-winning department with a demanding undergraduate program that combines theory and praxis.
Crane served on almost every committee required to plan, hire faculty, assess and grow a program from a minor to a stand-alone department. As the graduate coordinator for the program from 2001-03, he was responsible for many of the curriculum choices and design still in place today. Now, as an associate professor in the department, he noted that some of the core faculty members for the film studies minor are students he taught and mentored as undergraduates.
Many agree that Crane has the ability to inspire his students. Communication Studies Department Chair Shawn Long stated, “I regularly receive unsolicited informal feedback in the streets and at graduation about how grateful students were to have Dr. Crane and how his lessons have served them well in their lives.”
A senior who has taken classes with Crane for three years attributes his enthusiasm for the study of mass media to courses taken with Crane. “Dr. Crane uses a very effective, unique teaching style…. His classes are challenging, but learning is mandatory in order to pass,” wrote the student.
Crane’s courses are rigorous and include topics in communication theory, film theory, public speaking, cultural studies and popular arts. Dynamic, absorbing lectures and free, open classroom exchange enable students to internalize ideas more readily, said Crane. His colleagues agree that his ability to unravel and articulate complex concepts for his student is a true gift. Fundamentally, Crane teaches students that symbols and communicative regimes shape a sense of self and structure engagement with multiple communities.
An affiliate faculty member in three programs, American studies, film studies and honors, Crane was interdisciplinary before interdisciplinarity was cool. His courses are often cross-listed with several campus programs, and Crane serves on various interdisciplinary feasibility committees.
According to Crane, “Love for the play of intellectual exchange is expressed and experienced through shared identification and fellow feeling.” The classroom offers a platform where students and faculty can “co-create and share intellectual sustenance.” He believes that when students and their instructor are fully engaged and united in a structured yet spontaneous analytic dialogue, the class as a whole experiences “flow.” It is this “flow” that Crane strives to achieve.
“Each time we communicate, a world of meaning is called into existence,” said Crane.
Fumie Kato, associate professor, Department of Languages and Culture Studies
According to students and colleagues, Kato, associate professor of Japanese and coordinator of the Japanese Studies Program, has created a “Japanese family” on campus. When she joined the Department of Languages and Culture Studies in 2001, few students studied Japanese.
Department Chair Sheri Long stated that students now “flock to Japanese classes not only because they are fun, but more importantly because of the feeling of camaraderie, support and cooperation modeled by the Japanese staff under Professor Kato’s supervision.”
Because of Kato’s dedication to multifaceted student learning, Japanese is now the second most popular major in the department and one of the largest undergraduate Japanese programs in North Carolina.
Sensei Kato, as her students respectfully call her, created this thriving Japanese major from scratch. Between fall 2002 and fall 2013, the number of Japanese courses offered increased from six to 22, the number of exchange partner universities in Japan increased from two to six, and the number of students enrolled in the Japanese courses grew from 258 to 856. This impressive growth facilitated the establishment of the Bachelor of Arts in Japanese Studies in 2011.
Kato teaches elementary, intermediate and advanced Japanese language courses, as well as Japanese culture courses, ranging from business to film to news to anime. Her expertise in applied linguistics, with emphases on language pedagogy, student motivation and learning strategies, strengthens the program and inspires her colleagues. Kato’s book “Improving Student Motivation toward Japanese Learning” published in both English and Japanese in 2010, enables other instructors to benefit from pedagogical successes. Motivating students by helping them perceive that the learning of Japanese, while difficult in some respects, can still be an enjoyable experience is Kato’s goal.
Joël Gallegos, assistant provost of international programs, noted that Kato encourages more students to study abroad than any other instructor or program at UNC Charlotte; she has sent approximately 175 students to study in Japan since 2002. She also has involved her students in the Charlotte-based Japanese community to increase their awareness of Japanese customs, culture, business etiquette and lifestyle. She also organizes and oversees extracurricular events, including speech contests, year-end presentations, a Japanese film series and Japanese dinner nights for students in the program. These popular events increase student engagement and motivation and enhance Kato’s teaching success. To fund these initiatives, Fumie has secured an unprecedented number of grants for the Japanese program, including from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, the Japanese Foundation, and the Association of Asian Studies.
One of Kato’s students described how the professor has gone “above and beyond” to help students understand Japanese language and culture, stating that “she recognizes her students’ capabilities and helps guide them toward success.”
In recognition of her involvement with the Japanese Studies program, Kato received the Phi Beta Delta International Education Award in spring 2014. Kato in August also received the Bonnie E. Cone Early-Career Professorship in Teaching.
Debra Smith, associate professor, Department of Africana Studies
Smith learned in the eighth grade that teaching should be inspirational, relevant, challenging, creative, respectful, collaborative, interesting, exciting and irresistible. Teaching should help one grow.
“My philosophy is to teach in a way that respects every student and confirms their experiences as valuable to the learning environment,” Smith said.
She is the first to acknowledge that the courses she teaches are successful because of the relationships she builds with the students. She wants her students to feel a connection to the content and be able to discern why this content is relevant. She works to guide students to critical consciousness, to a sense of ethical action, and to a conscious engagement with their educational endeavors.
Since joining UNC Charlotte in 1997, Smith has developed and taught a diverse suite of courses that bridge disciplinary boundaries across the University, including critical film, global Africa, African-American culture, health and environment, journalism, folklore and women’s studies.
Teaching and classroom peer evaluations may demonstrate her proficiency in the classroom, but they cannot begin to measure the absolute satisfaction she gets from teaching and learning. Her students recognize and thrive under this dedication. A senior Africana studies major wrote that Smith “works at every level of student ability by participation and reinforcement. She has a very special way of covering sensitive race issues within the boundaries of mutual respect, which allows the class to operate within a framework of social comfort.”
Following her eighth grade teacher’s example, Smith has embraced the word “challenging” as it relates to teaching practices, and she has been a facilitator of best practices in teaching and learning. She was the first to teach an online class in the department before instructional technology became a widely adopted tool in the University. She led the efforts to convert the department’s gateway course to an online class and coached colleagues transitioning to Moodle-supported classes. Akin Ogundiran, chair of the Africana Studies Department, stated that Debra is an inspiring leader to students and colleagues alike.
Throughout her UNC Charlotte career, Smith has demonstrated a commitment to student success, including serving as an instructor in the University Transitional Opportunities Program (UTOP), as a member of the Chancellor’s Advisory Council on Intercollegiate Athletics, as a faculty mentor for the McNair Summer Research Program and as an advisor to a number of student organizations. She initiated the Africana Studies Summer Scholars Academy, a one-week summer program for rising high school juniors that offers opportunities for students to sample college-level courses, navigate college campus life and meet college professors.
For her dedication to teaching and student achievement, Smith has won honors from Student Support Services in three categories: Professor of the Year, Inspiration Award and Magical Mentor Award. In 2008, she received the Building Educational Strengths and Talents (BEST) Award for Teaching. Inspired by her teacher in the 8th grade, Smith has become the inspiration to so many.
