Dr. Daniel O'Brien congratulates Dr. Moore at the President's annual faculty/staff BBQ

When Dr. Moore discovered he won the national 2000 3M Teaching Fellowship award this summer, his response was visceral. “I cried my eyes out when I got it,” he said, beaming his distinctive grin. “I’m so lucky I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.”

Of the 52 nominations from 26 Canadian universities, Dr. Moore is the only Atlantic Canadian professor to attain a Fellowship this year. Of the society’s 150 past winners, only 10 have taught in the Atlantic Provinces. Memorial, St. Mary’s, Mount Allison and UNB have each produced two former winners while Dalhousie has housed one professor who earned the prize. St. Thomas claims the only Atlantic Canadian award this year. “Less than 10 per cent of all those winners are in Arts,” Dr. Moore, a professor of Spanish, explained. “I’m the first person in Canada to receive this award for Spanish. That’s incredible.”

3M Canada and the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education bestow this distinction each year on 10 professors across Canada. The award is destined for one who, according to 3M and the STLHE, exudes an “exceptionally high degree of leadership and commitment” to teaching.

Dr. Moore, a faculty member at STU since 1972, said the prestigious award will help him increase his output regarding education and teaching. “The Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education does publications on teaching and there are committees on teaching. This certainly allows me to get out and do some work I could not have done before,” he said.

The 3M Fellowship prize adds to Dr. Moore’s growing number of outstanding awards. His stature in the Department of Romance Languages is held in high esteem by St. Thomas and the Atlantic provinces. In 1997 the Associations of Atlantic Universities selected him over 3,000 faculty members from the region for the Distinguished Teacher Award. St. Thomas presented him with the St. Thomas University Special Merit Award for Research in 1996. That same year he won the University’s first Excellence in Teaching Award – the University’s only teaching prize. Dr. Rick Myers, vice-president academic, said, “The fact that Roger won the prize the first year it was awarded indicates that, in a certain sense, he would be considered by many to be the top teacher at [St. Thomas].”

Chantal Lafargue, a fourth year St. Thomas student honouring in Spanish and Interdisciplinary Studies in Discourse Analysis (and currently studying in Argentina), echoes the words of Dr. Myers. “Dr. Moore is more than a professor,” she said. “He is an academic/career/life counsellor, travel agent, rugby coach, web page designer and published poet, thesis supervisor, guest lecturer, editor, conference organizer, translator/interpreter, graduate studies judge and, most importantly, a caring leader who demonstrates his own quest for knowledge to all.”

Dr. Moore achieved a multimedia certificate last year from neighbouring University of New Brunswick, demonstrating his devotion to innovative learning. He emphasises education via multimedia and internet, requesting that students use online information, particularly to help conduct a mock trial in his Mexico Online! course.

In addition, he developed a web site to further educate those interested in Spanish (http://www.stthomasu.ca/~rgmoore).

Ms. Lafargue experienced Dr. Moore’s Mexico Online! and explained that “this class brought the international Hispanic community to our campus. We no longer relied solely on novels, grammar textbooks and artificial laboratory-type communication. Mexico Online! brought us debate, dialogue, music, poetry, art, e-mail contacts, chat rooms, images, video, live radio, history, politics, journalism and academic articles.”

“Roger would without question be among the three or four most innovative teachers at our university,” Dr. Myers noted. “He is one of those persons who would feel enormous frustration if he were required to do something the same way twice. He loves to find new and more effective ways of achieving his goal, which is constant: making students stronger learners.”

In addition, Dr. Moore is coaching St. Thomas’s women’s rugby team this season. Although oddly juxtaposed with his penchant for poetry, Dr. Moore has also earned innumerable accolades for rugby. “The fact that Roger would agree to take on this task, despite extensive professional commitments, is a sign that he is fully dedicated to the university, to our students, and to teaching,” Dr. Myers said.

Moore’s passion toward live theatre, on-line applications and the conversation course he developed to increase students’ fluency in Spanish speaking have situated his overall students’ ratings scores high above the university average. Also, as Chair of the Learning and Teaching Development Committee, he has organized workshops, activities and a regular publication regarding effective teaching for professors. In addition, Dr. Moore accepts four to five courses each semester, although the standard is three.

His reasoning behind his many endeavours is simple: “I am pleased with St. Thomas, and it has come a long way since I started here,” he said. “This Fellowship is really a university award. We’ve all improved so much.”

Dr. Moore participated in a three-day retreat at Chateau Montebello November 5-7. The retreat celebrated the achievements of the Fellows. STLHE and 3M Canada also hosted an awards banquet for Fellowship recipients on November 6.