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. This year’s winner is Dr. Eric Wetzel, the Norman Treves Professor of Biology.
Citation by Dean Scott Feller: Tonight, I am honored to announce the recipient of the 2019 McLain-McTurnan-Arnold Excellence in Teaching Award. The tradition has been for long citations, cleverly worded tributes crafted by the Dean of the College. By necessity that changed when I became the Dean. My award citations are shorter, and much less creative, but no less deeply felt. To honor a faculty colleague with this award is one of the highlights of my work as Dean. And this year’s winner is someone who I greatly admire, a teacher whose dedication to our students, to our college, and to our world, serves as a model for all of us.
Our winner is praised by students for passion inside and outside the classroom. I have been particular impressed by our winner as a model for lifelong learning, someone whose teaching and research has grown far from the narrow PhD training that most of us experience, someone who has developed new courses and new programs at Wabash that bring together academic disciplines in a way that is uniquely possible at a liberal arts college.
Our winner pushes students well outside their comfort zone, actively working to challenge them, to disturb them, as part of their education. He does that by taking the classroom far off campus, to understand the common elements of our humanity by learning about people and places far from our college as well as the people we call neighbors.
Please join me in congratulating the 2019 McLain-McTurnan-Arnold Excellence in Teaching Award winner, Professor of Biology, Eric Wetzel.