The annual Elsie M. Hood Outstanding Teacher Award is one of the most prominent awards to receive as a faculty member at the University of Mississippi.
The award has been given to recognize excellence among professors since 1966. The recipients are chosen from professors nominated by a 500-word or less statement letter. Nominations are being accepted now until March 1.
“The person who wins this award is somebody who goes well beyond paid responsibility and has a transformative effect on students,” Ann Fisher-Wirth, a two-year member of the selection committee responsible for choosing the final candidate, said.
The award means more than a $5,000 prize and landing a plaque with your name on it in the Ole Miss Chancellor’s Office.
The committee is composed of eight previous award winners who partake in a private ranking process. The committee reads the nomination letters, then discusses the merits of the candidates before making a decision.
Fisher-Wirth, 1998 winner of the Elsie M. Hood Award, has been teaching for more than 40 years, 28 of those years being at the University of Mississippi. She said she has no immediate plans to retire because she loves teaching so much.
“Whether sitting at a picnic table or in the Grove, we were almost always outside,” Mary Kate Workman, a student in Fisher-Wirth’s honors English class, said. “There was one class where we spent the last 15 minutes with her teaching us yoga in the Grove, around finals week, to help us de-stress.”
Fisher-Wirth said to be a good teacher is to have passion for the subject matter, for students and for helping.
Fisher-Wirth said there are dozens of nominees each year who are all considerably reputable scholars. Most teachers who receive this award are nominated more than once before winning.
“It is a very private process,” Assistant Provost Charlotte Fant Pegues said. “The only way a teacher would know if they are nominated is if the person who nominated them tells them.”
The nominees are only known by the selection committee. The winner is notified in the springtime once a consensus is reached by the committee, by a phone call from Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter.
“When the chancellor calls, that’s something that doesn’t happen very often, so you immediately think you’ve done something wrong,” Daniell Mattern, 1992 winner of the Elsie M. Hood Award, said. “When I was told, it was a very gratifying moment.”
Mattern said he was very grateful and humbled to be selected because of the many fine teachers at the university.
“I like to take a complicated subject and see if it can be mastered by students,” Mattern, an organic chemistry professor, said. “The things that seemed to be difficult when we first started now seem very very simple.”
“It’s my most cherished award that I have received,” Morris Stocks, 1998 winner of the Elsie M. Hood Award, said. “I believe [teaching is] the most important thing we do at the university, and I was honored to be recognized for such an important part of our work.”
The key to teaching is finding ways to motivate the students to learn, said Stocks. In Stocks’ financial statement analysis and valuation class, he brought in real financial experts from all over the country and the U.K.
Stocks said his teaching formula is to connect with his students on a personal level and to set clear attainable expectations while being available to help in the learning process.
This article was written as a special to The Daily Mississippian from an advanced reporting class.
