Gorman wins top Brown teaching award

Gorman wins top Brown teaching award

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News staff

Bridget Gorman still remembers her first sociology class as an undergrad at Western Washington University. “I had no intention of becoming a sociology major,” she recalled, when she took a course in social theory. But the professor, Ed Stephan, was so “funny and creative” that he made a subject often regarded as dry interesting.

	Bridget Gorman, associate professor of sociology, won the 2008 George R. Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

Gorman, an associate professor of sociology, said she models her teaching style on Stephan’s. It seems to be working. She won the 2008 George R. Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching one year after winning the Nicolas Salgo Distinguished Teaching Award.

Gorman taught Sociology of Drugs and Alcohol this semester for the second time. “I think I’ve finally gotten the class figured out,” she said. She described it as her favorite course to teach because it involves controversial issues like binge drinking, prescription drug abuse and the war on drugs, which spark students’ interest.

But Gorman is also excited about next year, when she will offer Research Methods. “It teaches you how to do sociology,” she explained. “It’s more complicated and involved than students expect.” Preparing for the course will be her “big summer project,” she laughed.

She may need to channel another earlier professor for inspiration. Mark Hayward taught a graduate course she took at Penn State in statistics and methods with such verve that Gorman likened him to a stand-up comic who was nevertheless able to get to the heart of the subject. Gorman cited Hayward’s approach for helping her “find my inner goofball” — a key element in keeping students’ attention — as well as “not being afraid to say you don’t know the answer” to a question asked in class. When this happens, she jots down the question and brings the answer to the next class. “Students like that a lot,” she said.

Gorman said she knows it’s been a good lecture by the responses she gets afterward. Some pepper her with questions during class, others (she calls them “lurkers”) hang out and challenge her later or during office hours. Not all students feel comfortable speaking up in a class as large as Sociology of Drugs and Alcohol, or her other large class, Introduction to Medical Sociology, each with an enrollment of 65, Gorman said, but if they follow up with their questions at some point, she feels she has been successful.

With two of Rice’s highest teaching awards under her belt, Gorman suggested each professor should find his or her own personal style and embrace it. “Be confident, relaxed and fair,” she said, and “be available” to your students. She has certainly been accessible to Rice students, serving as the undergraduate academic adviser for sociology and as a resident associate at Jones College (although her term at Jones College is coming to an end this summer after four years).

“I didn’t see it coming,” she said of the Brown Award, which she described as “very cool.” It is also timely, she explained, because leaving Jones means she will have to furnish her new townhouse. She plans to use the award money to buy furniture.