Jeanne O'Day, an assistant professor of English at the University of the Virgin Islands, has been named Virgin Islands Professor of the Year by the 1999 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching/CASE.
O'Day was singled out from more than 400 faculty members nominated by colleges and universities across the country. She is being recognized for her extraordinary dedication to teaching, her commitment to students and her innovative teaching methods.
This is the second consecutive year in which O'Day has been selected as Virgin Islands Professor of the Year by CASE.
O'Day has been teaching at UVI for the past eight years. A native of western New York state, she holds a master's degree in Education from Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y.
"I am grateful for the pleasure of teaching here and for the opportunity to learn from my students," she said.
O'Day is teaching two courses at UVI during the fall semester — World Literature and American Literature — courses within UVI's Humanities Division. A published poet, O'Day has a passion for the written and spoken word, especially the works of contemporary Caribbean writers.
"Given the renaissance in Caribbean literature, all of us at UVI have a responsibility to ensure students gain familiarity with Caribbean oralture and literature and the great Caribbean literary artists in all genres," O'Day said.
She says hers is a team effort, working with teaching assistant Delroy Pierre, to help her students recognize their strengths and eliminate impediments to their progress.
"I think students need safety so they can experiment, so that they can ask a question that they feel will be received, even if they've never heard it asked before," O'Day said.
CASE administers the Professors of the Year program in cooperation with The Carnegie Foundation. Winners are selected following an extensive review and judging process. CASE is the only national award program that recognizes college professors for their teaching. It is the largest international association of educational institutions, whose members represent alumni relations, communications and fund raising officers at more than 25,000 colleges, universities and independent elementary and secondary schools.