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| ASU professor
wins 2003 BOG award for teaching excellence |
By
Jane Nicholson
ASU News Bureau |
ASU News Bureau Thomas McGowan was awarded
2003 UNC Board of Governor’s Award for Teaching Excellence
on May 9 at a ceremony in Chapel Hill. McGowan teaches in
the deparment of English at Appalachian State.
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Thomas McGowan
worries over winning the 2003 UNC Board of Governors’
Award for Teaching Excellence. The award, which recognizes
outstanding teaching at the undergraduate level, was presented
to McGowan May 9 at a ceremony in Chapel Hill. The award includes
a commemorative bronze medallion and a $7,500 cash prize.
McGowan, an Appalachian State University
English professor, jokes that it will be hard to live up to
expectations the award brings, saying that like Appalachian’s
motto “Esse Quam Videri,” he will now have “to
be, rather than to seem.”
Students and colleagues of McGowan know
otherwise. Students say McGowan is “dynamic,” “the
best professor I’ve ever had” and his enthusiasm
for teaching is “off the scale.”
Fellow faculty are equally complimentary.
“In a department of excellent teachers,
Tom McGowan stands out as a teacher who gives his all,”
English professor Mark Vogel wrote in recommending McGowan
for the award. “He works very hard to reach each and
every one of his students.”
If ever there was a person who would seem
less likely to become a college professor, McGowan fits the
bill.
McGowan went to Notre Dame on a Navy ROTC
scholarship and says he didn’t have to worry about career
choices following his college graduation.
“I had the next four years after college
planned by the government,” he said. At one point, he
considered a career in the military “but I definitely
did not want to go back to Vietnam,” he said.
After serving four years in the U.S. Marine
Corps, McGowan went to the University of Virginia, where he
says he “stumbled through graduate school.” Despite
his stumbling, McGowan earned both a master’s degree
and Ph.D. from UVA. |
He
joined the English faculty at Appalachian almost immediately
after earning his doctorate.
McGowan teaches introduction to literature and expository
writing to freshmen, English literature and modern studies
to sophomores, and history of the English language, early
English literature and Chaucer to upper-level students.
Former student Ruth Ellen Blakeney wrote, “One thing
that he does especially well is to engage students in the
classroom. He creates a comfortable atmosphere in which he
respects and values students’ opinions.” Kemal M.
Atkins, another former student, wrote that “Dr. McGowan
made early English literature come alive. He provided significant
insights that made the literature more pertinent to us.”
McGowan has simple advice for being a good teacher. “Talk
to students outside of the classroom—on the quad, in
the library, the coffee house, the theater lobby—and
don’t be shy about talking about your subject or the
student’s major and academic progress at Appalachian,”
he said. “Be enthusiastic, even on bad days. Try to present
material as a recent and pertinent discovery and not old hat.
And show up for graduation; it’s the students’ and
their parents’ ceremony of closure and achievement.”
In addition to teaching, McGowan is known for his work as
a folklorist, an interest that grew out of his love for a
region rich in family traditions and folk art.
McGowan edited the North Carolina Folklore Journal for 22
years. In 2001, he received the North Carolina Folklore Society’s
first award for lifetime service to the folklore society,
folk artists and folklorists, which was named for McGowan.
He says he currently is an Orville Hicks scholar, referring
to his work with one of the region’s preeminent Jack
Tale tellers. “Tom’s desire to preserve, share and
contextualize such a cultural treasure comes as a natural
extension to his vocation as professor,” wrote Sandra
Ballard, a former student and current editor of the Appalachian
Journal. “By helping someone find an audience for his
work and by extending the bounds of what’s been known
and written about an important body of work, Tom epitomizes
the calling of teacher/scholar.”
The Board of Governors’ Award for Teaching Excellence
was established in April 1994. Underscoring the importance
of teaching and rewarding good teaching across the university
system, the awards are given annually to a tenured faculty
member from each UNC campus. Winners must have taught at their
present institutions at least seven years. |
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