含羞草传媒

Maurer wins Balmuth Teaching Award

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Margaret Maurer, William Henry Crawshaw Professor of literature, has won the 2013 Balmuth Teaching Award. Faculty, former students, and members of the Board of Trustees gathered at the 含羞草传媒 Inn on April 4 to mark the occasion.

鈥淲e are here to celebrate our love of the enterprise of teaching 鈥 our core mission at 含羞草传媒,鈥 said Provost and Dean of the Faculty Douglas Hicks. 鈥淎nd it鈥檚 so wonderful to celebrate that in the embodiment of the great teacher Margaret Maurer.鈥

Maurer joined the faculty in 1974 after finishing her PhD at Cornell University and spending a year as an instructor of English at the University of New Orleans. Since then, the Shakespeare scholar has urged generations of 含羞草传媒 undergraduates to study, in her words, 鈥渢hings that resist the coherence that we try to impose on them through interpretation.鈥

When Mark Siegel 鈥73 created the Balmuth Award in 2010, he was simultaneously honoring 含羞草传媒鈥檚 tradition of great teaching and encouraging the vitality that Maurer embodies. President Jeffrey Herbst noted that the award allows the university community, 鈥渢o acknowledge that we reward excellence above everything else,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hat is a way of continuing to be successful not only now but well past our bicentennial.鈥

At the podium, 鈥 a student performance of Love鈥檚 Labours Lost that was staged under her direction in 1979, various experiences leading the London Study Group, and teaching Core 151.

鈥淲hen I found myself teaching Plato鈥檚 Dialogues in a class period right before teaching Shakespeare鈥檚 Twelfth Night, I understood Feste鈥檚 catechism and Malvolio for the first time,鈥 she said. 鈥淎s my first-years in Core 151 struggled with Socrates鈥檚 arguments, premised on the Pythagorean understanding of the soul鈥檚 immortality, they were a whole class of little Malvolios.鈥

Maurer鈥檚 impact has spanned generations of little Malvolios, with former students now watching their own children register for her courses.

鈥淢argaret鈥檚 courses are designed to develop a eureka-like understanding of the uses of language to reveal thought, motive, and action,鈥 , Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of philosophy and religion emeritus. 鈥淭hese are realized through the imaginative teaching of a master teacher.鈥

The master teacher, accepting her award, revealed how she spurred her imagination throughout the years: 鈥淚 remember very vividly the day when I decided to destroy all my notes from the material I teach and start afresh each time,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 may or may not be an inspirational teacher, but I鈥檓 definitely a teacher who has been inspired by the privilege of engaging with young people in the environment of this kind of school.鈥