outstanding teachers honored

Wed., Jul 01

This year's recipients of the J. Philip Smith Outstanding Teaching Award are Margaret M. Sargent, associate professor of communication, and Diane Frankel-Gramelis, adjunct professor of public health. Both were honored on May 29 as part of the undergraduate commencement ceremonies at the Connecticut Tennis Center.

Sargent first taught at Southern in the fall of 1999, and then returned permanently in 2003.  She teaches a wide variety of courses within the Communication Department, including those dealing with interviewing, interpersonal communication and small group communication."My primary responsibility is to my students," Sargent says. "This responsibility moves beyond the mastery of course material. It involves creating a sense of worth and accomplishment, fostering a climate of inquiry and respect, and developing an enthusiasm for learning that lasts a lifetime."

Her ability to create challenging courses that maximize learning while building positive student relationships is the quality most mentioned by many students who nominated her for the award.  She is equally well respected by her colleagues.

"I like to describe her as one of our teaching 'rock stars' because our students are so attracted to her teaching style," says Jos Ullian, chairman of the Communication Department. "Her classes are exciting, rigorous and informative."

Sargent's commitment to student success extends beyond the classroom to include academic advising for more than 30 students, serving as the faculty adviser for the College Republicans, and working with student interviewers on classroom communication research. 

At the university level, she is an active member of the Teaching Innovation Program Advisory Board, the Curriculum-Related Activities Committee, and the Academic Standing Committee.  She also shares her teaching expertise with Southern faculty through workshops, including the First-Year Experience Academy and the Teaching Innovation Program. Her teaching is complemented by an ongoing research agenda that includes health communication, training and development and pedagogy.

Frankel-Gramelis is the director of community education at Milford Hospital and regularly teaches two sections of a course in stress management and health promotion for the university's Public Health Department.

She is a former Southern student who earned both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from the university. "I believe being a student here myself has added to my understanding of how important it is to be involved and available to your students in and out of the classroom," she says.

Students who nominated her for the award have stressed her compassion for students and the life lessons they learned from her, as well as the positive differences she has made in their lives. 

Bill Faraclas, chairman of the Public Health Department and a former professor of Frankel-Gramelis, says he hired her to teach part time more than a decade ago. "From the very start, and without exception, she has performed her teaching role with distinction - even beyond the level I had imagined," he says. "Her energy is matched only by the joy she derives from her classroom experiences."

Outside of the classroom, Frankel-Gramelis guides and mentors student interns at the Milford Hospital Education Department and presents workshops on stress reduction and health-related strategies for Southern's resident advisers and the School of Graduate Studies. She has also shared her professional expertise through presentations for the Wellness Center, at the Women and Work Life Balance Conference and during Administrative Professionals Day.

The J. Philip Award for Outstanding Teaching is awarded annually to one full-time and one part-time faculty member.  Nominations are solicited from the entire university community.  Nominees are invited to submit their portfolios demonstrating their teaching excellence.  The portfolios are then reviewed by the Outstanding Teaching Award Committee.  Key criteria are excellence in teaching, innovation in teaching, motivational and pedagogical techniques and professional development contributions and research in their field that relate to teaching.

The committee forwards its recommendations to the coordinator of faculty development, who then forwards the recommendations to the provost.