Maureen Connolly’s students in the Department of Physical Education and Kinesiology universally praise her energy, honesty, and empathy. One writes, ‘Professor Connolly is a shining star, an extraordinary teacher”, and another notes that “her risk-taking empowered me to take my own risks.” that engagement with student learning has already been recognized in the Brock University Distinguished Teaching Award. According to her University President, “In my nearly thirty years of university life, I have met few faculty who exhibit her level of commitment to students and their success.”

Professor Connolly’s influence extends throughout Brock University and the Niagara region. According to one colleague, “she has contributed at every level of excellence: through classroom presentation, innovative course development, curriculum and educational materials, undergraduate and graduate teaching, graduate thesis supervision, administrative leadership and scholarly publications.” Her significant commitment to Brock’s Centre for Teaching has led to an unprecendented number of workshops in the areas of evaluation, seminar teaching and feminist pedagogy, and she has served as Interim director of the Instructional Development Office. Her scholarship includes and impressive eighty presentations and publications ont eaching. She is, in her own words, dedicated to “creating the conditions for passion for the subject matter, and deep regard and attentive wonder for each other.”

Students in Alex Faseruk’s courses at Memorial University might find themselves not in the classroom but in a bank, evaluating the customer waiting lines, or hanging out at McDonald’s and Burger King to compare fast food business strategies. That field research, combined with real-time data and case-based learning, make his classroom a lively place, in which, as he says, “the experienced instructor learns to act more like a referee than a reference book.”

Dr. Faseruk has already received an impressive sixteen awards for his teaching, and his course evaluations show why. He is, according to his students, “always willing to help”, “funny”, “demanding”, and “effective”; or, as one put it, “Excellent, excellent, excellent!” He has also dedicated hundreds of hours and had unparalleled success coaching Memorial’s teams to victory in National and International Case competitions.

His vision and leadership were recognized in 1999 with The National Post’s “Leader in Management Education” award, and he shares his devotion to student learning with new generations of teachers, through workshops and supervision in Memorial’s Graduate Program. He has, as one former student put in, “touched the lives of so many students…in so many lasting ways.”

As a teacher of Audiology and Speech Sciences, Judith Johnston sees herself as a path maker, who “indicates the direction of travel, puts signs up where the road splits, and strategically positions a few benches to encourage pauses for reflection.” Her students appreciate that guidance and praise her insight, deep knowledge, and infectious enthusiasm. As one put it, she “pushes a student to the top of her ability but never beyond”, and her students consistently rate her teaching most highly, with an average of 4.7 on a 5-point scale over more than a decade. She has already been recognized for her achievements as a teacher, starting with the prestigious Lily Teaching Fellowship in 1981 and the AMOCO Foundation Teaching Award in 1986, and in 2002, she received a UBC Killam Teaching Prize.

She merits the 3M Award both for exceptional teaching and for her original vision and leadership. She transformed her school’s clinical education program and, since 1982, has been awarded over a million dollars in funding for elevent educational projects. An active supporter of the UBC’s Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth (TAG), she chaired its most important committee through its formative years. She is, as one student put it, “a wonderful teacher and mentor.”

“I remember him telling me that the best teacher would be one who gave the impression of having taught nothing, and yet taught everything, of having made the least of efforts, and yet given heart and soul, so that the students may see their own genius at work rather than the few guiding nudges that give birth to it.” This apparent ambiguity is from a quotation of one of Claude’s students. It is at the heart of the pedagogical dialogue that Claude so effectively creates. Winner of the Award for Excellence in Teaching at the University of Ottawa as well as the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Award (OCUFA) this year, Claude Lamontagne personifies all of the leadership qualities we so value in our community.

Amongst Claude’s numerous curricular innovations, his course, Psychologie de l’Intuition statistique is but one example where his students engage in the unique process of discovery learning. So popular among students, this course consistently has a waiting list, is taught in both French and English, and has led to the creation of a research program.

For Claude, teaching and learning is represented in educational encounters which aim at genuinely valuing and fostering the growth of the learner. According to Claude, his pedagogy is not one of showing knowledge, much less stamping it with one’s professional expertise. Instead, his objectives as rooted in the Socratic conception of teaching, that of being a “midwife to truth.”

David Poole’s teaching can turn even self-confessed “math-phobes” into “math-philes” and his passion for his subject is a source of great delight to his students. As one former trent University student says, “Professor Poole has inspired this would-be English teacher with the confidence to teach mathematics, which I now do every day.”

His mission to make math accessible to a wide audience led him to write the university text currently used by more than 35 institutions. A colleague describes him as “both an exemplary and innovative teacher in his own university classroom, and a visionary crusader, dedicated to new educational strategies that reach beyond the university to elementary and high school teaching of mathematics.” That dedication has been recognized already, both with Trent’s Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching and with three Merit Awards for Excellence in Teaching.

Hi has also worked effectively to improve the quality of instruction on his own campus. In 2002, Trent created the position of Associate Dean of Arts and Science (Teaching and Learning), and David’s impressive history of workshops, talks, and leadership in teaching development made him the natural choice for the post.

More than 300 students flock each year to Philip Smith’s 8:30 am Introductory Psychology class at UPEI and it’s easy to see why. He makes an effort to know each of them; he encourages a “service-learning” assignment in which students work with community organizations; he believes in “learning to write and writing to learn” and devotes time daily to student writing; his WebCT bulletin boards let students talk through their fingers and respond to issues raised by their peers; and a volunteer student feedback team keeps him in touch with the needs of all his students. As one of those students put it, “this Dr. Phil deserves at A+!”

These efforts to reach his students have already been celebrated both with the UPEI Award for Teaching and the CASE Canadian Professor of the Year Award in 2000. As Dean of Arts, he championed new programs for students, such as a writing-across-the-curriculum initiative, an office to assist learning-disabled students, and a university writing minor. He volunteers with the First-Year Advisement Centre, mentors in the Teaching Partners Program for new faculty, and developed an Arts Seminar course using student peer educators. In the classroom and among his peers, Philip is a model educator.

The 3M Teaching Fellowship is gaining a member in high places. Dr. Alastair Summerlee, master teacher and tireless advocate for the improvement of university teaching, is also Guelph’s President Elect.

A strong advocate for problem-based learning in his own field of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Summerlee has made profound contributions to Guelph’s learner-centred mission. His infectious enthusiasm has helped foster a culture that values teaching, and it has led to curriculum innovations, teaching awards, teaching-focused appointments, innovative technology projects, and program collaboration with Humber College. Through a variety of administrative positions, including Dean, Associate Vice-President, Provost and Vice-President Academic, and now President, he has continued to champion the cause of university teaching in observable and concrete ways.

He is also, according to the Director of Teaching Support Services at Guelph, “an absolutely exceptional instructor, who brings an unrivalled passion and commitment to the learning process.” “Dr. Alastair Summerlee”, writes one student, “was a breath of fresh air who is no time at all, had swept our collective feet out from under us. Immediately captivating our class through his instruction of anatomy, of all subjects! We were loud, raucous, enthusiastic and most importantly, engaged.”

UNB’s Dead Poets’ Society is not a student group; it’s a fellowship of university professors, co-founded by Pierre Zundel, who meet to share a meal and ideas. The topic is teaching, a subject about which Dr. Zundel is both expert and passionate.

He believes that “the most important component of education is not teaching but learning”, and his students recognize and value that commitment. As one writes, “under his leadership, how much one learns is a function of how much one is willing to ‘think outside the box’ for answers.” His learner-centred approach led him to spearhead an innovative curriculum using problem-based learning and team teaching in the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management, and he helped design UNB’s Renaissance College program in interdisciplinary leadership studies.

A winner of the first UNB Teaching Professor Award and of the 2002 Atlantic Association of Universities Instructional Leadership Award, he has been an outspoken advocate of excellence in teaching throughout the university, and he does all of this with infectious enthusiasm, boundless energy, and a master teacher’s sense of when to criticize and when to praise.