FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 3, 2000
CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119
DRAKE PRESENTS TOP AWARDS FOR TEACHERS, MENTORS
Drake University’s most prestigious awards for faculty and staff recently were presented to Julian Archer, professor of history, and Daniel Spencer, associate professor of religion and ethics.
Archer received the 2000 Madelyn M. Levitt Outstanding Mentor of the Year Award and Spencer was honored with the 2000 Madelyn M. Levitt Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award. These awards were created in 1994 by Madelyn M. Levitt, national chair of the University’s $190 million Campaign Drake and a member of Drake’s Board of Governors.
In presenting the University’s top award for mentors at the Spring Faculty/Staff Recognition, Interim Provost Stephen Hoag said Archer is noted for his extraordinary commitment to student success and that he often serves as a mentor to students who are not even enrolled in his classes.
Hoag also noted that Archer volunteers as the faculty representative for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, helping Drake students prepare for the rigorous competition for the $30,000 scholarship. Since 1990, six Drake students have been selected as Truman Scholars, including Sheila R. McCoy, a senior who recommended Archer for the Levitt Mentor of the Year Award.
"Dr. Archer's guidance was always tremendously helpful," McCoy wrote in a letter of recommendation. "The hours that he spent with me, meticulously combing my responses for clarity, accuracy and grammatical errors allowed us to form a wonderful relationship. I consider him to be one of my dearest friends and a spectacular mentor."
Todd Sechser, AS'99, another Drake Truman Scholar, also recommended Archer for the award. "Without Dr. Archer's skilled and devoted guidance, Drake simply would not have the remarkable record of success that it has had in the Truman Scholarship competition," Sechser wrote.
Archer, who joined the Drake faculty in 1968, specializes in French social and labor history. His mentoring philosophy is emblazoned on his course syllabi: "I AM WILLING TO MEET WITH EACH OF YOU TO DISCUSS ANYTHING JUST ABOUT ANYTIME."
Effective mentoring, Archer said, comes from both the heart and the mind. "It is not a formula extracted from a manual, but rather a desire to see each student discover his or her potential," he added. "This means spending uninterrupted periods of time with students individually — probing, questioning, analyzing and, eventually, leading them to formulate in their own words thoughts as immediate as what they have learned in a course or as long range as what they want to do with their lives."
Professor Spencer, the 2000 Madelyn M. Levitt Outstanding Teacher of the Year, joined the Drake faculty in 1993 and serves as president of the Faculty Senate this year. He routinely takes students on retreats, organizes voluntary field trips and leads travel seminars to Latin America.
In presenting Spencer’s award, Hoag quoted from a four-page letter of nomination from Jennifer McCrickerd, assistant professor of philosophy. Her comments included:
"Students take Dan's courses because Dan is teaching them. They know that his courses are rigorous and will push them to engage in issues in an entirely new way. They know that his classes will open their worlds and help them to see what they can do to make a difference. Because Dan firmly believes that learning only begins in the classroom and must extend outside of the classroom, his classes require outside work that engages and begins to change the world."
Sam Brooke, a senior from Crosby, N.D., also endorsed Spencer for the Madelyn M. Levitt Teacher of the Year Award. He said Spencer excels in listening to students and understanding what they are asking. What really sets Spencer apart from his peers, Brooke added, "is his interaction with me and other students in the classroom, his sincere dedication to helping students learn not just by hearing, but by doing, and his seemingly unending dedication and stamina to help us students."
In accepting the award, Spencer said he continues to be challenged by the words of one of the six Jesuit priests who were murdered 11 years ago in El Salvador -- murdered because of their work with the poor to open up society's benefits to all its members.
"Ignacio Ellacuría, rector of the Central American University, had criticized the educational philosophy of his own Jesuit university: 'What we do," he said, 'is train students to be successful in an unjust world. This is an extremely low standard of excellence. What we should be doing is teaching students to transform an unjust world.' I try to heed this challenge each time I enter the classroom. Only when there is true justice for all will we be able to take an unblemished pride in our individual accomplishments."