English professor Gary Harrison is the 2008 Presidential Teaching Fellow, the highest teaching honor the University of New Mexico bestows. One of his students wrote on the nomination for the award, "Dr. Harrison's ability to cultivate a classroom where all have a voice in an ongoing dialogue is one of the greatest aspects of his teaching, as is his facility in constantly challenging his students to think, explore and discuss."
Photo: Gary Harrison, 2008 Presidential Teaching Fellow
Harrison began teaching at the university in the fall of 1987, after he graduated from Stanford University with a Ph.D. in English. His specialty is British Romanticism and Literary Theory, and he says the most formative experience in his teaching career cam when he had the opportunity to teach an innovative two-semester course in World Literature with four seasoned, creative colleagues, Paul Davis, Patricia Clark Smith, David Johnson and Joseph Zavadil.
As part of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant they developed what is now the survey of world literatures sequence in the Department of English. The course includes a truly diversified study of the world’s literature for student in an increasingly global culture. The “masterworks” course includes key works from Japanese, Chinese Indian, African, Arabic, Persian, and Latin American writers.
He has also worked to develop new curriculum in the Comparative Literature/Cultural Studies program, and has worked with colleagues to develop a Health, Medicine and Human Values curriculum as the undergraduate component for UNM’s B.A.-M.D. program.
A published author, Harrison wrote “Wordsworth’s Vagrant Muse” as well as several articles on romantic literature and culture, literature and ecology and pedagogy. In addition he is co-editor of two anthologies of world literature, “Western Literature in a World Context” and “The Bedford Anthology of World Literature.” A concise edition of the Bedford Anthology will be in bookstores this December. Harrison is currently working on a critical study of the English poet John Clare.
The fellowship gives faculty members a two-year opportunity to work in areas that will benefit the university as a whole and Harrison has chosen to do curriculum development and will assist departments in developing assessments of student outcomes. He is also interested in exploring ways to develop e-portfolios for students to electronically store and document their writing and multimedia projects. E-portfolios could be used by students as electronic resumes, and accessed by employers who want writing samples or other examples of student’s work.
This fall Harrison will be teaching classes in British Romanticism and Introduction to the Professional Study of English along with a number of individual study courses.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; email: kwent2@unm.edu