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Northern Illinois University

NIU Office of Public Affairs


News Release

Contact: Mark McGowan / Tom Parisi, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-9472 / (815) 753-3635

April 21, 2004

NIU honors three professors
for excellence in undergraduate teaching

DeKalb — Northern Illinois University has named Kristen Myers, Amy Newman and Lawrence Stoffel as the 2004 recipients of Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the university’s longest-standing honor.

Myers is a professor in the Department of Sociology while Newman is a professor in the Department of English. Both departments are in the NIU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Stoffel is director of Huskie Bands and professor of music in the School of Music, part of the NIU College of Visual and Performing Arts.

The awards stand in a class of their own because the nominations and subsequent words of support originate not from their peers or supervisors but from the young minds on the other side of the classroom.

Initiated in 1966, the awards honor excellent undergraduate teaching in the university, encourage improvement of instruction and promote discussion among members of the university community on the subject of teaching. Nominees must be full-time faculty whose major responsibility is teaching and must have worked at least five full academic years at NIU.

Myers, Newman and Stoffel were honored Sunday, April 18, during the Convocation for Academic Excellence. Each received a check for $2,000.

Here is a closer look at the three.

A labor of love

In the Department of Sociology, Kristen Myers’ commitment to her students is fast becoming the stuff of legend. Let’s go back to the evening of Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2002. Nine months pregnant, Myers goes into labor – while she’s teaching.

“I kept having to stop and wait for the contractions to pass before I could talk again,” Myers recalls. “I thought it would pass because it had with my first child. I was in serious denial.”

Even after the class, she remained intent on teaching the next evening, recalls William Minor, former sociology chair. “By the time her family and friends finally convinced her to go to the hospital, her contractions were two minutes apart,” he says.

Those who know Myers wouldn’t be completely surprised. Students and colleagues alike praise her dedication and her passion for the art of teaching. Students have given her the top performance rating in the department in each of the past four years, even though her classes are rigorous and she’s a notoriously tough grader.

“She expects a ton of work out of her students,” says senior sociology major Justin Hoy, who has taken three Myers courses. “But students appreciate the challenge they get from her and also the high amount of enthusiasm she brings to the subject matter.”

Myers lives in DeKalb and holds a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University.

She teaches undergraduate and graduate sociology courses that typically delve into controversial issues, including sexism, racism and poverty. The lessons leave a lasting impression.

“This class has reversed my thinking on many racial and gendered issues,” one student wrote, “wherein I will be a more informed and more accepting person.”

Myers also is active in the department outside the classroom. During her eight years at NIU, she directed or served on a dozen master’s thesis or comprehensive examination committees, as well as one dissertation committee. While advising the Sociology Advisory Committee, she led students on trips to the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and to Florida, where they built a Habitat for Humanity house.

In the classroom, Myers continuously updates her course content. She typically presents formal lectures, but about a third of each class period is dedicated to student interaction and input.

“Because most of the subject matter is somewhat controversial, it’s imperative that students have a voice in grappling with major issues,” she says. “It's part of my job to provide and act as a sounding board. NIU students are a wonderful blend of interested, skilled and delightful thinkers who make my job a pleasure.”

Graduate student Mary Landeros says she emulates Myers’ teaching style. But Landeros’ first encounter with Myers was a bit of a shock for the straight-A student.

“I received a B on the first paper I gave to her,” Landeros recalls. “I was shocked because I don’t get Bs. But she had all these comments and questions on it that really made me start thinking so much more critically. I try to do the same with my students, to challenge them to think beyond what they know.”

Poet’s eye; teacher’s heart

It’s not measured verse, but the praise students heap upon English Professor Amy Newman is nonetheless pure poetry.

“She taught me the beauty of being human,” says Brooke Dawson, now a graduate student at Marquette University. “I am determined to emulate her caring example in my classroom and beyond.”

“Students respect not only her teaching and writing ability, but also her nurturing and her sincere belief that they all can become great writers if they strive hard enough,” NIU graduate student Emily Celaric adds.

“I entered her class an English minor,” junior Jayne Crosby says. “I left her class an English major.”

Citing her concern for students, her availability outside the classroom and her passion for teaching, English Department students nominated Newman for the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award both this year and in 2002. The nine-year NIU veteran teaches a wide array of courses in writing and literature, with a specialty in poetry.

She is herself a leading poet, with more than 100 published poems and two published collections. Her upcoming book of poetry, titled "fall," explores the title word through its definitions and will be released appropriately in September, from Wesleyan University Press. The book proposal won Newman both a prestigious MacDowell Colony Fellowship and a 2003 Artists Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council (IAC).

But Newman not only creates poetry, she inspires it.

Her students regularly publish and perform their works, and several have achieved acceptance into prominent poetry seminars and graduate creative-writing programs. Ironically, Newman doesn’t read her own works in class, though students say they’ve taken it upon themselves to conduct group readings of her works.

“All of the students put her on such a pedestal, but her modesty and sense of humor help us to see her as an everyday person,” says Dawson, who took three Newman courses. “She laughs at herself a lot.”

Students have been known to reshuffle their schedules to take a Newman course, and often they take more than one. Doris Macdonald, director of Undergraduate Studies in English, says Newman’s presence has revitalized students’ interest in the poetic form.

“It is largely thanks to her efforts that the demand for creative writing courses has increased, as has enrollment in the introduction to poetry course,” Macdonald says. Newman also has directed a dozen undergraduate independent research projects and three honors capstone projects.

Newman holds a Ph.D. from Ohio University and lives in DeKalb with her husband, Joe Bonomo, a writer and fellow NIU English professor. “I have the luxury of teaching amazing literature to students,” Newman says. “So while I can create an encouraging atmosphere in the classroom, I know that it’s what I teach that makes me look good.”

She aims to provide students with “a historically informed sensitivity” to literature and prefers student-discussion groups to a lecture-based setting. “I feel that the best classroom is student-centered,” she says. “Almost anyone who teaches will tell you the best way to learn is to teach, so I try to create opportunities for my students to teach each other, usually without their knowing it.”

Music: beauty, and truth

Musicians are keenly aware of the “how” of their craft: How to read notes. How to assemble instruments. How to produce sounds.

Lawrence Stoffel, director of Huskie Bands in the NIU School of Music, would rather focus on the “why.”

Why do we play music? Why do we listen? Why is music “an essential part of what is being human?”

“Teaching is not about just what it is we do as musicians,” Stoffel says. “I challenge students to think back and ask, ‘Why is music so important to me? Why do I value it? Who am I as a musician?’ What would seem like very straight-forward questions to students are very baffling, because they haven’t been challenged by them yet.”

Stoffel’s personal answer changes with the times.

“I’m pursuing an ideal, searching for what is beauty in music, what is truth in music,” he says. “I ask students, ‘How are you going to insert that in your day-to-day teaching?’ That’s why we do it. The joy of teaching is watching that discovery.”

But Stoffel finds another joy: sharing music with students and audiences. And for Huskie Football fans, Stoffel’s reward is their victory.

Stoffel, his staff (including Assistant Director Margarite Ortega and a graduate student) and his 160 marchers prepared an unprecedented seven different half-time shows during the Huskies’ near-Cinderella season last fall.

It’s a challenge many university marching bands no longer accept, he says, and that frantic schedule drastically cut rehearsal time. His pride shines through, although he says his favorite part of Game Day comes during the pre-game “swarm” through the tailgate area and later in the stands.

“It’s not just the half-time show,” Stoffel says. “There’s a sense of satisfaction of sharing something you love with thousands of people.”

The Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award is humbling, he says.

“I’m comfortable being the director of the marching program and being in the spotlight. That showmanship is part of the job. I don’t like the spotlight in situations like these,” Stoffel says. “But I’m honored, I’m pleasantly surprised and I’m flattered.”

Former students praise Stoffel for his nurturing personality and his willingness to go above and beyond to help them.

“He really helped students to break out of their shells, and taught us that the only way to teach and conduct respectfully is to allow yourself to be vulnerable. You have to show your true self,” says Shannon Heffernan, instrumental music educator at Clinton Rosette Middle School in DeKalb. “I think this really is not just a conducting lesson, but a life lesson.”

“He is as dedicated a teacher as I have witnessed,” says Paul Bauer, director of the School of Music. “His students produce to their fullest potential for him because he is very demanding yet respectful.”

Stoffel, who holds degrees from the University of California-Los Angeles, the University of Colorado and Indiana University, came to NIU in 1996. He and his wife, Peggi, a music teacher in Aurora, welcomed son Mark Thomas last May.

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