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Two Professors Win Statewide Honors for Teaching
In November, E&H English professor Scott Boltwood was named the 2013 Virginia Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). The award, which is given annually to one professor from each state, is widely considered the most prestigious teaching award in all of higher education. In January, a second major award—the 2014 Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award—was given to Dr. Michael Lane, E&H professor of chemistry. Sponsored by the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV), the honor recognizes professors who have made significant contributions in the areas of teaching, research and the integration of research in the classroom. Dr. Scott Boltwood has become a leading expert on the 40-year religious conflict in Northern Ireland. The reputation he has built from this area of study contributed to his selection as the 2013 Carnegie Foundation Virginia Professor of the Year. Boltwood, who travelled to Washington, D.C., to accept his award, praised the E&H community for its encouragement of teaching excellence. “While I am proud that my accomplishments can serve as examples for my students and colleagues, I recognize that the time I take to advise, teach and mentor encourages everyone in my college community to maintain their faith in their own worth and to recognize the attainability of their dreams,” he said. Boltwood, a Cornell University graduate who received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia in 1996, said he is drawn to teaching the type of students who attend liberal arts colleges, especially those who attend Scott Boltwood
Emory & Henry. E&H President Jake Schrum said the E&H
community has tremendous respect for Boltwood and his passion for both his students and his scholarship. “Professor Boltwood believes that the combination of his work in the classroom and in his academic writing is the most important calling that he could have found. Whether he’s preparing students (his ‘junior colleagues’ as he calls them) for their lives and careers, or he’s seeking to restore the forgotten playwright Patricia O’Connor to Irish theater history, he approaches his work like a man with a mission.” Boltwood’s understanding of the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland has come largely through his groundbreaking pursuit of Irish theatre studies. Through that research approach, he has become an expert in the conflict’s foundations, its toll on the Irish people, its impact on the culture, its international implications and its lessons.
14 / WINTER 2014 / E&H Alumni Magazine