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Distinguished teacher and Swords Medal recipients honored
The annual fall faculty convocation and awards ceremony was held on Sept. 26 in Brooks Concert Hall. The event honored professor of sociology, Edward H. Thompson Jr.—this year’s recipient of the 2006 Holy Cross Distinguished Teaching Award.
The Holy Cross Distinguished Teaching Award recognizes and honors the teaching excellence of the College’s faculty. A committee of students, faculty, alumni and administrators selects the honoree after careful review of nominations from individuals and groups on campus. Recipients demonstrate the College’s commitment to teaching and personalized instruction by making ideas come alive for students both in and out of the classroom. The Distinguished Teacher is invited to give the principal address during the Faculty Convocation and is awarded a $1,000 honorarium.
A member of the College faculty since 1977, Thompson received his bachelor of arts degree in sociology from California State University, Sacramento, and his Ph.D. in sociology from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Long interested in issues of gender and family life, Thompson is the director of the Gerontology Studies Program, a cooperative, academic program of the Colleges of Worcester Consortium, Inc.; he also teaches courses on the family, sociology of men, aging and society, sociology of mental health, and medical sociology. Engaged in the ongoing study of the social worlds of older men, Thompson has published books and articles on caregiving, experiences of older men, and masculinities and family life. Editor of the first collection of original articles examining elderly men (Older Men’s Lives, 1994)—and of the book, Men as Caregivers (2001)—he serves as organizer of the men’s issues interest group for the Gerontological Society of America.
The Raymond J. Swords, S.J., Faculty Medal honors those members of the faculty who have served the College for 25 years or more. This year’s recipients were: Isabel Alvarez Borland, professor of modern languages and literatures, Spanish section; George R. Hoffmann, professor of biology; James M. Kee, associate professor of English; Alice L. Laffey, associate professor of religious studies; Randy R. Ross, professor of physics; and David J. Schap, professor of economics.
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