Stanton Wortham Receives 2012-2013 Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching

April 19, 2013 - We are proud to announce that Professor Stanton Wortham has received Penn's 2012-2013 Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Awards for Distinguished Teaching. The Lindback Award is one of the highest accolades a faculty member can receive and recognzies exceptional leachership and outstanding service as a faculty member. Stanton Wortham received one of only seven Lindback Awards, drawn from a pool of more than 2,500 eligible faculty from across the University.
 
Dr. Wortham is the Judy and Howard Berkowitz Professor of Education and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at GSE and has taught at Penn since 1998. His students and colleagues consistently admire his commitment to challenging students' assumptions and getting them to think in new ways, and last year he was honored with GSE's Excellence in Teaching Award.

According to a colleague, Dr. Wortham "creates an intellectually demanding atmosphere of 'no-holds-barred' questioning" in which students "felt invited into, and supported through, a richer conversation about their enterprise, about ends and means, with a renewed intensity of inquiry."

A doctoral student said that "The students he is teaching are professionals with many years as practitioners in the field, with beliefs, assumptions and practices that have been in place for a long time. Stanton has a way of teaching that challenges these assumptions in a meaningful way through discussions and provoking questions, thus shifting the way students think about what they do in practice."

Another graduate student added, "This exploration is not only valuable but essential. I credit Dr. Wortham with expanding not only my professional understanding but my ability to critically examine that which I previously accepted as truth. I can think of nothing more valuable in a teacher."

Dr. Wortham was presented with the award at a reception on Wednesday, April 17, 2013 in Bodek Lounge, Houston Hall, 3417 Spruce Street.

The Lindback Awards were established in 1961 with the help of the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation. Christian Lindback was president and principal of Abbotts Dairies, Inc. and a trustee of Bucknell University. The Foundation established the awards at colleges and universities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. Penn awards up to eight Lindback Awards annually.