Faculty Awards Presented at Annual Fall Convocation

The annual Fall Faculty Convocation and Awards Ceremony was held at Holy Cross on Tuesday, Sept. 28. The event honored Professor Christopher Dustin, the recipient of the 2004 Holy Cross Distinguished Teaching Award, and Professors Thomas Gottschang and Rev. Anthony Kuzniewski, S.J., the recipients of the Rev. Raymond J. Swords, S.J., Faculty Medal.

The Holy Cross Distinguished Teaching Award recognizes and honors the teaching excellence of the College's faculty. Selected by a committee of students, faculty, alumni and administrators, who review nominations from individuals and groups on campus, recipients have demonstrated the College's commitment to teaching and personalized instruction, 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.

Professor Christopher Dustin, of the philosophy department, was this year's Distinguished Teacher. According to Dean Ainlay, "Members of the selection committee were impressed by testimonials from Chris' colleagues who spoke of his relentless dedication to the highest standards of teaching. Even more so, committee members were impressed by what people described as Chris' ability to pass on basic skills while inspiring students and while not losing sight of the unique perspective and concerns of each young mind entering the classroom or office."

In his introduction of Professor Dustin, Dean Ainlay recalled the words of Dustin's colleagues and students. One professor noted that "to know Chris as a person is to know Chris as a teacher since the two are inextricably connected. 'More than anyone else I know,' this colleague observed, 'he connects life in the classroom with his own life of the mind. Christopher's ability to deliver a dazzling lecture is matched by his ability to pose penetrating questions. His questions give students a way into difficult material, and point them further than they thought they could (or needed) to go.'"

A student described Dustin's strength as a teacher as rooted in his ability to listen. She argued that, "in Professor Dustin, students find a professor whose attention to detail and ability to listen they can take as a model for their own lives."

A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1991, and chair of the philosophy department since 2000, Dustin earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University, where he completed a dissertation on "Ethics and the Possibility of Objectivity."

Interested in ancient philosophy, moral philosophy, and the philosophy of art and architecture, he teaches several introductory and intermediate philosophy courses, as well as advanced seminars on Plato, Aristotle and Heidegger.

Dustin has published and lectured widely on a variety of topics, including objectivity in ethics and aesthetics, the role of emotions in Aristotle's ethical thought, poetry and education in Plato, freedom and reason in architectural modernism, and classical architecture and tragedy. He is the co-author, with Holy Cross visual arts professor Joanna Ziegler, of the forthcoming, Practicing Mortality: Art, Philosophy, and Contemplative Seeing (St. Martin's Press, January 2005).

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 Thomas R. Gottschang, professor of economics, and Rev. Anthony J. Kuzniewski, S.J., professor of history. Both were presented with a gilded silver medal bearing the College seal and engraved with their names.

Related information:

# Christopher A. Dustin Teacher of the Year Address