Professors Recognized For Great Teaching

In honor of their outstanding teaching abilities, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles recently named six faculty members as Harvard College Professors.

The award, presented annually to six tenured professors, provides those honored with a five-year chair and allows them to take a semester of paid leave or receive additional funds for research.

“Every year, it’s a pleasure to announce the names of those colleagues whose contributions to undergraduate education are outstanding, and to know that they will receive some tangible recognition for their commitment to our students,” Knowles said in a prepared statement.

This year’s honorees are Leo Damrosch, Bernbaum professor of literature; Peter L. Galison ’77, Mallinckrodt professor of the history of science and of physics; Robert Kiely, Loker professor of English and former master of Adams House; Stuart M. Shieber ’81, McKay professor of computer science; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Phillips professor of early American history; and Gregory Verdine, professor of chemical biology.

Galison, who this past semester taught History of Science 120, “History and Philosophy of Modern Physics” and Physics 121, “History and Philosophy of 20th-Century Physics,” said he finds teaching a particularly rewarding part of his job.

“I enjoy teaching,” Galison said. “Trying to develop new forms and structures of teaching has been the most enjoyable aspect of my job in recent years.”

Working to find new teaching presentations led Galison and Robb Moss, Arnheim lecturer on filmmaking, to offer a class last fall on the filming of science.

Scheiber, a professor of computer science, noted that the opportunity to enter the classroom was what drew him into becoming a university professor.

“The reason I came to Harvard [from private research] was because I was interested in teaching,” said Shieber, who also serves as a member of the Committee on Undergraduate Education.

Shieber said he particularly enjoys teaching the high caliber students who enroll at Harvard.

“You can’t find a better place to teach undergraduates than Harvard,” Shieber said.

Fellow computer science professor and Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ‘68 said Shieber’s devotion to teaching is quite evident in his lectures.

“[Shieber] is an amazingly well-organized perfectionist,” Lewis wrote in an e-mail. “His lectures are extremely well planned and his courses are thoughtfully put together. At the same time he laces all his presentations with understated humor which keeps them lively and interesting.”

Students in the classes of the new Harvard College Professors said they greatly benefited from the innovations these professors bring to the classroom.

“[Damrosch] had a wonderful camaraderie with the students,” said Claire J. Eager ‘03, who took a first-year seminar with Damrosch on the literature of William Blake last year. “I got the feeling that he loved teaching undergraduates.”

She noted that Damrosch encouraged members of the seminars to express their own ideas on Blake, even if their ideas challenged the notions of literary critics.

“It was a wonderful way of teaching and getting freshmen in college to think for themselves,” Eager said.

The recipients of the teaching prize dismissed the notion that undergraduate teaching takes a back seat at Harvard to other scholarly tasks, such as research.

“I’ve taught at several colleges and I think that Harvard more than other colleges values undergraduate teaching,” Damrosch said.

Lewis said one of the award’s purposes is to underscore the importance of classroom interaction.

“This is a way that Harvard shows the value it places on good teaching, in an environment where we are told all the time, incorrectly, that only research matters,” said Lewis. “It is gratifying that those selected are all first-rate and productive scholars.”

—Staff writer Daniel P. Mosteller can be reached at dmostell@fas.harvard.edu.