Excellence in Teaching
Timothy Briggs
Special Lecturer in Rhetoric, College of Arts and Sciences

Timothy Briggs shares his philosophy of teaching with students on the first day of class through a picture of a mature goose and a gosling, explaining that everyone in class will have the chance to play both roles – that of learner and of teacher. He mentored the 2005 - 06 Writing Excellence Award winner, who said Briggs’ teaching style is creative and inspiring. A colleague notes that Briggs recognizes “the stretch toward excellence is full of guesses, experiments and intellectual wild goose chases…that are as valuable to growth as the end product.” A former student, studying to become a teacher, sums up Briggs’ impact by saying, “you sometimes come across a professor that teaches their students not only about the material in the lecture, but about ways to be successful and ways to spread their own wings.”