Dougall, Boynton honored
Dougall, Boynton honored with teaching awards
Assistant professors Elizabeth Dougall and Lois Boynton were presented with teaching awards during the school’s 2007 honors convocation.
Dougall won this year’s Edward Vick Prize for Innovation in Teaching. The $10,000 prize is awarded annually to the faculty member whose creativity and innovation in teaching over the past academic year most meaningfully enhanced his or her students’ learning experience. The prize is named for Ed Vick, a passionate leader and team builder who was CEO of Young and Rubicam and who is a member of the school’s Advertising Hall of Fame.
Dougall was nominated for this prize because of her efforts to bring the real world to her students and to insert her students into the world of business and communication. Three examples illustrate her innovative spirit.
Her collaboration with Chris Roush and a business communication class at Kenan-Flagler Business School allowed her students to be advisers to their business school counterparts about how to work effectively with media. Public relations students counseled the business majors as they all participated in a mock news conference. One student said, “I spent weeks preparing for that mock news conference, only to find that the image I hoped to convey for my client did not quite ring true in the eyes of the judges. We did not fully take into account the person presenting the announcement, the wording, the audience—a whole slew of things. There is nothing like a real life lesson to bring home a classroom lecture.”
In a course she designed, “Crisis Communication,” Dougall engaged her students with the towns of Cary and Carrboro to develop crisis communication plans. The student teams brought their community clients to Carroll Hall for media training and mock interview sessions in the school’s television studio. Here, Dougall’s students were the experts and town administrators are their students.
In the third example, Dougall took her public relations campaigns students to Wachovia, an institution that sought to develop new products for young adults. The students discovered that incentives were not the key to getting students to adopt products—creating relationships was much more important. The students offered a valuable service to a venerable business institution.
Boynton, winner of the David Brinkley Teaching Award, has devoted herself to excellence in teaching at all levels and in diverse venues, from large, 8 a.m. classes to graduate seminars.
Her teaching doesn’t stop in the classroom. Two of her graduate students were the outstanding graduating students last year. Two faculty members acting independently nominated Boynton for this award, and these nominations were supported by many student comments.
Quotations from the many students who supported her nomination include:
“Dr. Boynton goes above the call of duty by sending job opportunities, relevant articles of interest, and takes a passionate role in advocacy. For example, she has volunteered to eat dog biscuits for a Relay for Life as part of our j-school fundraiser….I will really miss her once I graduate.”
“I loved the ethics class because of Lois. She will go out of her way to say hello, call you by name, and high-five you in the hallway if she sees you….she brings an uncanny humor to the classroom that keeps everyone tuned in. Even the most boring subject matter stands no match for her wit.”
“Lois is willing to help her students follow their own interests. I had a seminar class from her as the very last class of my graduate career; Lois bought us lunch and for two hours we talked about our projects, our theses, getting jobs, our families, home buying, and our grand plans for Christmas Break.”