Greg Morris Receives 2007 Atherton Award for Teaching Excellence
Gregory L. Morris, professor of American literature and acting program chair for the English major at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, is a recipient of the 2007 George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Morris joined the Penn State Behrend faculty in 1988. He teaches courses primarily in contemporary American fiction, nature writing, and world literatures, including Australian/New Zealand literature and culture. He coordinates the college’s participation in the annual Pennsylvania College English Association conference to give Penn State Behrend students an opportunity to present their own scholarly and creative work before an audience of faculty and English students from around the state.
Morris is the author of three books, including A World of Order and Light: The Fiction of John Gardner (1984, University of Georgia Press), The Short Story in English: Britain and North America, An Annotated Bibliography (1994, Scarecrow Press), which he co-edited with Dean Baldwin, a professor of English at Penn State Behrend, and Talking Up a Storm: Voices of the New West (1994, University of Nebraska Press). Over the course of four years, Morris interviewed fifteen contemporary western fiction writers for Talking Up a Storm; in its review, Publishers Weekly noted that “the majority of authors in these lively and engaging conversations pay tribute to older writers…but concern themselves with the West as an area in transition rather than a land with a mythological past.”
He also is author of two monographs in Boise State University’s Western Writers Series, Frank Bergon (1997) and Gretel Ehrlich (2001).
Penn State Behrend students “flock to his classes,” one of Morris’ award nominators wrote. “A good example of how Professor Morris tries to clarify complex class discussions is his creative use of the chalk board,” the nominator added. “He writes student comments on the board and then draws lines to connect the disparate threads. In this way, clarity emerges from seemingly chaotic classroom discussions.”
Coincidently, Morris’ son, Ben, a senior creative writing major at Penn State Behrend, won the University’s 2007 James “Jake” Cranage Award for his poem “Noise in August.”
Greg Morris earned his bachelor’s degree in English from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in English from the University of Nebraska. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State Behrend he taught at University of Nebraska and the State University of New York at Cortland.
The George W. Atherton Award is named for the University’s seventh president and presented each year to four faculty members who have devoted substantial effort to undergraduate teaching. It was established in 1989 as a continuation of the AMOCO Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching.
Robert W. Speel, program chair and associate professor of political science at Penn State Erie, was a recipient of the 2006 Atherton Award. In addition to Morris, the 2007 recipients are Carol Reardon, professor of military history at Penn State University Park; Doris Turkes, assistant professor of sociology and women’s studies, Penn State Berks; and Nitin Samarth, professor of physics, Penn State University Park.