The School of Arts and Sciences announced the recipients of its most prestigious teaching prizes the same week that three Penn professors were named Guggenheim fellows.
The Ira Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching, the highest honor given to SAS faculty, has been awarded to Classical Studies Professor Ralph Rosen and English Professor Michael Gamer.
"It's really nice to get a pat on the back for doing all of the things I've been doing for almost 20 years," Rosen said. "It just feels good."
Rosen is director of the Center for Ancient Studies and the faculty director of the Communication Within the Curriculum program. He is also the former chairman of the Classical Studies department.
Rosen has been intensely involved with Penn's Academically-Based Community Service Program, in which Penn professors collaborate on courses with teachers at University City High School.
"The classes are always experimental, and they've had their ups and downs," Rosen said. "With this recognition, it gives that program some recognition too."
Gamer said he has been thinking about the meaning of the award for days now.
"I've been trying to make sense of this for a week," Gamer said. "It's a fantastic honor, not only to have been nominated by a department known for its accomplished teaching, but also to have won in the same year as Ralph Rosen."
Gamer is a faculty fellow at Hamilton College House and the interim director of the Writing Program. In 1997, he received the University's Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.
In addition to the Ira Abrams award, SAS gives seven other awards for distinguished teaching and extraordinary commitment to students' education.
Among the other honors are the Dean's Awards for Distinguished Teaching by Graduate Students. Ten graduate student teaching assistants received the award in a variety of subjects.
"It's a very nice honor," third-year French Literature and Film graduate student Ari Blatt said. Blatt won the award in Romance Languages.
"It's especially nice to be recognized by the students," he added. "When you think about the number of graduate student TAs there are, that students thought highly enough of me to have taken the time to write a letter on my behalf means a lot."
The recipients of the teaching awards were chosen by faculty committees based on student recommendations. Usually, a letter of support from a faculty member -- often the chairperson of the specific department -- accompanies the students' praises.
"There are many, many deserving candidates," SAS Dean Samuel Preston said. "The people who win truly do stand out as magnificent teachers."
Three other College professors were also honored this week with prestigious fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. As Guggenheim Fellows, Chemistry Professor Marsha Lester, History Professor David Ludden and History Professor Kathy Peiss will receive substantial stipends for their research projects.
"There were only two chemists in the whole country who won, so I was pretty thrilled," said Lester, who was recognized for a study of radical reactions in the lower atmosphere. "It's very exciting because I'm going to be taking a sabbatical leave next year. I'll still be at Penn, but I won't be teaching. I'm going to do 100 percent research on atmospheric chemistry.
"It's something I've wanted to do for a long time and this provides the opportunity to have an extended sabbatical."
The Guggenheim Fellowships are awarded annually for distinguished scholarly achievement and exceptional promise for future accomplishment in the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and creative arts.
"The fact that we routinely win several Guggenheims a year shows that we have one of the most distinguished faculty," Preston said. "It's generally the most honorific award in the humanities and social sciences. This is it. This is the most competitive of all them. If you're a Guggenheim Fellow, you've reached a real level of excellence in your scholarship."
The teaching awards will officially be handed out at a ceremony on April 22 at the University Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology.
