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Professor Dennis wins the Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching Freshmen
Dr. David Dennis, left, with department chair Dr. Robert Bucholz
We are pleased to congratulate Professor David Dennis on winning the Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching Freshmen for the year 2015. According to the Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy, the Provost's Award "recognizes faculty who build community with first-year students by teaching 100-level freshmen classes. Exemplary faculty foster cura personalis (care of the whole person) in new students by providing necessary support and challenging them to become fully integrated into the Loyola community."
Dr. Dennis teaches Western Civilization, and as he explains, "my goal is ever to introduce the Humanities as a record of personal responses to historical conditions, that my students might derive some of the same inspiration from it as I have. It is for this reason that my coverage includes a strong biographical element. By telling stories of the lives of Mozart, Beethoven, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, I try to remind my classes that the 'canon' was produced by real people–many of whom 'broke through' in their fields at the very same age as our first-year students! Above all, I want to show that each of them can enliven their own existence by appreciating the spirit and courage of these young individuals who mastered techniques of their chosen field in order to communicate ideas about their personal, social, political, and spiritual experiences."
Congratulations, Dr. Dennis!
