Awards

When I was seven years old and in second grade, the teachers staged an all-grade spelling bee one afternoon. As I recall, it was raining outside, so they had to cancel recess, and this was to give us something that held our attention. But when it was all over, I was the last one left standing. Over thirty years later I remember it clearly, because I was only seven years old and therefore very impressionable. I was still voraciously consuming any data that helped me see where I stood against my peers. The prize was nothing special: one of the teachers bought me a Fudgesicle at lunch, which cost all of thirty-five cents. Well, that, and I got a bit of bragging rights out of it.

Over the past three years, I've been on something of a winning streak. Back in spring of 2007, I won the Teaching Excellence award at Stephen F. Austin State University. A year later, spring 2008, the graduating seniors at Northwest Christian College voted me professor of the year. And last year, I won the President's Award for Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership. This year, the school nominated me for the Donald H. Ecroyd award, which is given by the National Communication Association. A few folks have asked, "What are you going to do when we run out of awards for you to win?" And all of that has set me off thinking about what these mean.

In the first place, they don't mean what they apparently mean. They do not mean I was one of the best teachers at SFA in 2007, or the most inspiring at NCC in 2008, or the best faculty member at NCU in 2009. They mean, in each case, that a group of people cobbled together a template and found what they perceived was the best match from the available candidates. The SFA award involved a nomination packet, and past winners weren't eligible, and the assembling of the packet itself was an exercise in rhetorical effectiveness. It didn't prove I was better than others at teaching, but that I was better than others at arguing in favor of my teaching abilities, which is an entirely separate matter. As far as "Professor of the Year," I've often pointed out that in the 2007-08 school year, I had only about three seniors in all of my classes, so if the seniors voted me an award, that may have more to do with who they didn't like than who they did. ("Not him! ... Not her! ... Not him!! ... Who's left?") The President's Award, of course, was selected by a committee. Enough said.

I do take them as encouragement, and as far as that goes, they're nice. But when people ask if I'll be disappointed when there are no more awards to win, the answer is of course not. I've been encouraged all I need; it's to the point where I see very plainly who isn't getting encouraged and needs it, and it would genuinely feel better to see some of the encouragement flowing to them than to have to go through the whole awkward cycle of graciously responding to congratulations.

They can also be a bit of external validation. The school's motive in sending me in for the Ecroyd award is to lay hold of a selling point for the school. Of course we brag about how much we value teaching, and what high quality teaching we think goes on here, but most schools do that. A prospective student considering the school is badly in need of tiebreakers, of evidence that sorts out the claim schools make to the quality of their teaching in order of strength. The judgment of outsiders from other schools that the teaching happening on this campus, in the communication program, is in the very top tier in the nation, would be a powerful persuader.

On the subject of symbols that are easily understood, they're also a message that I can pass on to people I left behind in Texas who might be wondering if I'm settling in here. My mother, naturally, got very worried about my third year review, but it was nice to be able to quiet her worries substantially with a very conceited summing-up that I didn't feel in my own heart at all: "Mom, they only give two awards to faculty, and I'm the only faculty member who's won them both, and I won one of them the first time it was given. If I don't pass third year review, it will be very interesting to hear why." That helped her, but was very difficult to say, just because I don't at all feel as though I stand a head higher than my colleagues. I'm in awe of a great many of my colleagues, and on a lot of days I think I hit somewhere in the middle of the faculty or below. It's just that I've got both a knack and a deep academic background for being very visible and very hard to ignore.

What the awards are not, what they never will be, is proof of good teaching. When I gauge how a year went, the awards never cross my mind. Instead, I round up all my memories of student progress, student excitement, and I even watch for some delayed-reaction change. Often students will tell me directly that I'm making a difference, that they feel encouraged or challenged, or that they're using whta I teach and that they see its value. That, as any teacher who has any business in the profession can testify, is the real award. It can't hang on a wall or go on a vita, but it can be treasured in the heart, and it's the one thing that has any hope of making up for the ratio of labor-intensity to pay.