2018 – McLain-McTurnan-Arnold Excellence in Teaching Award Winner:
Dwight Watson

Each year, the Dean of the College selects one member of the faculty to receive the McLain-McTurnan-Arnold Excellence in Teaching Award. The award honors the memories of Reid H. McLain ’27, Clair McTurnan ’10, and Kent Arnold ’29, and has been given annually to a member of the faculty who has distinguished him or herself by innovative and engaging teaching since 1965. A list of past winners of the award is available here.

Citation by Dean Scott Feller: Dr. Dwight Watson, our winner this year, is dedicated in equal parts to Wabash students, to Wabash faculty and staff, and to the liberal arts, a proven recipe for success in this community.

It is ironic that I have set out to honor our award winner with a shorter monologue when our recipient is someone whose ability to engage an audience is unparalleled among the faculty, someone who has drawn me in, anxious to hear their next word, time and time again. The love for language, its sound and its imagery, come through in all of our winner’s work. This colleague has a distinct style in which every word has meaning and affect, a style that comes through in lectures and in writing, in comments at meetings, and most importantly, in excellent work as a teacher.

Our award winner came to Crawfordsville over 30 years ago and quickly established himself as a professor with an exceptional capacity for productive scholarship, for exceptional creativity in the arts, and most importantly, as an outstanding teacher of Wabash men. The author of nine books and plays, with creative work appearing in seven different anthologies, this colleague has received playwriting awards in more than a dozen different competitions.

While Shakespeare wrote that all the world’s a stage, the playwright that we honor tonight might say that all the world’s a classroom. He has taken our students on immersion trips across this country and across the world and has traveled to China to teach theater courses. His work in Asia has provided material and inspiration for his current project, a dramatic monologue based on his recent essay, “Chinese Bikes at the Intersection of Time.” Work that he shared with the campus at our most recent Ides of August celebration.