2001 ASA Distinguished
Contributions to Teaching Award
Department of
Sociology, Indiana University
The ASA Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award honors outstanding contributions to undergraduate and/or graduate teaching of sociology. This award recognizes contributions that have made a significant impact on the manner in which sociology is taught at a regional, state, national, or international level.
Indiana University’s Department of Sociology is honored for its efforts to train
graduate students to teach and engage them in the scholarship of teaching
and learning, a truly unique accomplishment among research institutions in
academia. Although this award goes to the entire department for its
outstanding work in promoting the excellence of teaching, three individuals
deserve special recognition: Professors Brian Powell, Bernice Pescosolido,
and Kent Redding. Their combined, synergistic efforts have made the
department a leader in training graduate students to teach. The department
offers a certificate in college pedagogy; special emphasis on the training
of international instructors; a graduate teaching fellowship; a partnership
with award-winning faculty at other Indiana colleges to plan courses,
workshops, and conferences. The department was selected as one of four
sociology programs in the ASA’s Preparing Future Faculty project. The legacy
of this department shines in its graduates, many of whom have won numerous
teaching awards in various colleges where they now teach, and they have
published extensively in Teaching Sociology. This department reminds
us that teaching need not, indeed cannot, be separated from research and
that doing both well enhances our individual scholarship and institutional
commitments to training graduate students.
