Pitt English professor named best in the state

David Bartholomae was in Beijing, China, when he learned that Pitt wanted to nominate him as Pennsylvania’s professor of the year.

While leading students on a study abroad program last spring, Bartholomae received a call from Pitt’s Office of the Provost informing him of the nomination.

Bartholomae was named the 2013 Professor of the Year for Pennsylvania last month by the national Professor of the Year Awards program. In addition to Bartholomae, 35 other professors were named state professors of the year. Four different professors were named national winners.

In addition to being a part of Pitt’s English department since 1975, Bartholomae served as department chair from 1995 to 2009. Since 2009, he took up the department’s Charles Crow chair, a position named after a Shakespeare specialist who taught at Pitt until 1973.

Bartholomae has been involved in many of the undergraduate English programs at Pitt, teaching courses that range from literature to journalism.

Judy Kim, a senior majoring in Spanish and minoring in Chinese, studied in Beijing with Bartholomae last spring as part of the Pitt Multi-region Academic Program, which is also known as PittMAP. She affectionately refers to him as “Barth.”

“He encouraged us to go out and explore, which I think we needed, especially since we were traveling to new places. He implied that we should go out but didn’t make it seem like a chore,” Kim said. “He became like a father figure to us and was always there to help out if things went wrong.”

Bartholomae has written prolifically on education.

He is the author of three books on the different styles of and ways to improve writing and research, and he is the co-author of many more, including the textbook series “Ways of Reading,” whose ninth edition was published in 2010.

More than 50 of Bartholomae’s articles have been published in scholarly journals, including the well-known “Inventing the University,” which has appeared in multiple publications beginning in 1986. In the article, he argues that students must have a solid understanding of the material about which they are writing before they can express themselves effectively.

The chair of Pitt’s English department, Don Bialostosky, said that he admires the commitment and enthusiasm that Bartholomae brings to the classroom.

“He really focuses on getting students to think and communicate like educated adults,” Bialostosky said.

He added that Bartholomae, “has had an impact on the way teachers are thinking about teaching in the classroom.”

The colleges and universities where candidates teach must nominate them for the Professor of the Year Award. The application also includes endorsements from former students and colleagues. Candidates for the award are judged by three panels of university deans and education writers.

The program, which was founded in 1981, is sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education in Washington, D.C., and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in Stanford, Calif.

The Pennsylvania Professor of the Year Award is only the latest award for Bartholomae, who also won the Exemplar Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication in 2006, the 1987 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Educational Press Association of America and the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995.

Barthlomae said that even though he “shocked” a lot of people when he chose to work at Pitt instead of taking another job offer, he feels he made the right choice.

“I’m extremely grateful,” he said. “It felt like the right place to be, and that turned out to be true.”