More than 200 professors have been honored with the award since its founding in 1970.
Each year, students honor a group of about four Ohio University professors with an award that allows them to create and teach a course on that topic.
The University Professor Award, founded in 1970, has honored more than 200 professors.
In the fall, students have the opportunity to nominate a professor through an online application process, according to a previous Post article. A group of students on the University Professor Selection Committee observe candidates in their classrooms, interview them and go over a proposal for a course that recipients can teach.
Joshua Jamerson, senior news editor of The Post, was a part of the University Professor Selection Committee for Spring 2015.
After receiving the award last academic year, Jennifer Chabot, an associate professor of social and public health, plans to teach a class in the fall about families and social media.
“I think it’s really transformed how we think of families, so it’s just a topic I’m really curious about,” Chabot said. “I’m going to have students do a research project to survey their peers on who they are talking to.”
Chabot said she wants the class of about 10 to 15 students to be a fun and interesting way to learn about research.
“Social media is not my area of expertise at all, but families are,” Chabot said. “I always like to choose something that I’m going to open up a new world for myself, as well, and I thought it would be really interesting for students to take on a research project that I think is really meaningful to them.”
Nancy Manring, associate professor of political science and the 2013-14 recipient of the award, said she taught a course in climate change politics during Spring 2014 for 10 students.
After teaching the course, she updated and revised her existing environmental policy and politics course for Fall 2014 to have a focus on climate change politics.
“By being very up to date on this major, overarching issue, it was a tremendous opportunity to update my existing course to provide a lens to look through climate change that still enabled us to look at a variety of different kinds of environmental policies and topics,” Manring said.
Manring said teaching a University Professor course offered a new experience.
"I think most of us are used to teaching larger classes than that so the UP course is a really fun and different kind of experience," she said. “One of the benefits of a UP course is that you’re not bound by the needs of your discipline. You don’t need to cover a certain amount of material to prepare your students for the next course or the next level of study."
While teaching the course allowed her to revise an existing class, Manring said she also thought it provided a unique opportunity for students.
"I think that it depends upon the student’s major, but I think it’s a fairly new experience for many students to be in such a multi-disciplinary, close-knit group, and to have the opportunity to get to know a professor in a different way,” Manring said.
This year’s University Professor recipients will be honored Thursday at 6 p.m. in Alden Library’s Faculty Commons.
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