2008 Outstanding University Teacher Award Winner Category I

Robert Broad, Ph.D.

• Ph.D. in English from Miami University (Ohio) (1994)
• Professor of English, Department of English

Teaching philosophy

Core of my philosophy is actively engaged collaborative learning to address authentic and urgent questions, purposes, and audiences beyond the university.

Motivation to become a college professor

1. My passion for learning, thinking, reading and writing, and
2. My deep sense of duty to promote the advanced intellectual and rhetorical abilities on which democratic society urgently and absolutely relies.

Teaching accomplishment I am proudest about

When some of my students nominated me for a national teaching award.

The one teaching technique or strategy I would recommend

To be more interested in your students’ questions and ideas than you are in your own.

Important improvement that I have made in my teaching

Not to be satisfied with “exercises,” and instead to design projects that require students to conduct research and writing for real purposes about which they (the students) urgently care, and for real audiences who will actually read and care about that research and writing.

For colleagues who seek to become an outstanding teacher, I recommend

… decide to talk less in class, and instead get your students talking and working together to generate the exciting questions and insights that drive learning in your classrooms.