Palaima receives award

Good news!

http://www.texasexes.org/news_item.php3?id=185&AddInterest=1292

Text:

Palaima to receive Holloway Award 

May 2004 

Classics professor Thomas Palaima to receive one of the oldest teaching awards on campus. 

In 1970, Jean and Sterling Holloway endowed one of The University of Texas’ first teaching awards to formally establish that students should play a role in the selection of teaching awards.  Since then, each spring, a group of 10 students – five from the College of Liberal Arts and five from the College of Natural Sciences – have come together to read and evaluate nominations made by fellow students and to select the recipient of the Jean Holloway Award for Excellence in Teaching. 

According to the Holloways, “The person selected should demonstrate a warmth of spirit, a concern for society and the individual, and the ability to impart knowledge while challenging students to independent inquiry and creative thought, as well as respect for and understanding of the permanent values of our culture.”  The award features a stipend that was valued at $1,000 in 1971 and is adjusted every-other-year to have the same purchasing power. 

This year, Thomas G. Palaima, the Dickson Centennial Professor of Classics, will be honored with the with Holloway Award.  Palaima will join former Holloway laureates at a dinner in his honor on May 10. 

Palaima has been teaching at the university since 1986.  Of his teaching, one student said, “He introduced to me a passion for life I never yet witnessed in any pedagogue, let alone one from the Classics Department.  It was my sincere pleasure to be under his tutelage day in and out, whether he was teaching me Greek or about life in general.  His instruction has afforded me invaluable lessons about teaching, humanity, and the world around while at the same time, goading me and others to see the Greek language in such a way that I will never, ever forget it or him.” 

Palaima’s lectures have been likened to “watching someone ride a tilt-a-whirl at an amusement park” and his students appreciate his ability to keep a dead language alive and interesting.  As one said, “He compares Bob Dylan to Homer, quotes James Brown to illustrate grammatical points, and translates bits of Elvis songs into Greek.” 

Palaima says of his teaching philosophy: “I have never had one and am not going to invent one now.  The closest I can come to one is to state a belief or feeling that teaching is a profession in the literal sense, a way of declaring ‘These things have meaning for us as human beings and we are here to explore them together, to see them in new ways, to keep them alive and to share them with others.’” 

Former Holloway Laureates: 

1970: Dr. Clifton Grubbs, Economics 
1971: Dr. Richard Kraemer, Government 
1972: Dr. Stephen Monti, Chemistry 
1973: Dr. Charles Rossman, English 
1974: Dr. Vernon Briggs, Economics 
1975: Dr. John Trimble, English 
1976: Dr. James Vick, Mathematics 
1977: Dr. William Galston, Government 
1978: Ms. Denise Schmandt-Besserat, Comparative Studies 
1979: Dr. Oliver Radkey, History 
1980: Dr. Katherine Davis, Mathematics 
1981: Dr. John Zammito, History 
1982: Dr. Patricia Kruppa, History 
1983: Dr. Betty Sue Flowers, English 
1984: Dr. Norman Farmer, English 
1985: Dr. David Francis, Classics 
1986: Dr. Charles Holahan, Psychology 
1987: Dr. Mary Baker, French 
1988: Dr. George Wright, History 
1989: Dr. Alan Campion, Chemistry 
1990: Dr. Jerome Bump, English 
1991: Dr. George Forgie, History 
1992: Dr. Melvin E. L. Oakes, Physics 
1993: Dr. David A. Laude, Chemistry 
1994: Dr. Mia Carter, English 
1995: Dr. Michael Starbird, Mathematics 
1996: Dr. Raymond Davis, Chemistry 
1997: Dr. Henry Dietz, Government 
1998: Dr. John White, Chemistry 
1999: Dr. Eric Anslyn, Chemistry 
2000: Dr. Toyin Falola, History 
2001: Dr. Brent L. Iverson, Chemistry 
2002: Dr. Howard Miller, History 
2003: Dr. Mark Southern, Germanic Studies