Dr. Susan W. Kuntz, Saint Michael's College professor of psychology, earned the top Saint Michael's teaching award, the Joanne Rathgeb Teaching Award, for 2008, as selected by her faculty colleagues and presented at the Academic Convocation January 23 in the McCarthy Arts Center on the college campus. This year's convocation was dedicated to the memory of the late Emeritus Professor of English, Dr. John Reiss.
Dr. Will Marquess, last year's teaching award winner, read the citation recognizing Dr. Kuntz at the convocation. The citation spoke of how well she "achieves that elusive quality of genuine student-teacher rapport: showing students she greatly cares both for their learning and for them as individuals."
Dr. Kuntz was described in the citation as a person whose "gift for teaching is a natural extension of the remarkable person she is-a person of deep compassion, moral and intellectual courage, and a commitment to always work hardest for the students most in need."
She was recognized too for a career "molded and honed through years of committed study, research and practice." Her doctoral degree is in curriculum and instruction from Syracuse. She has extensive participation in the American Educational Research Association and the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Her recently published book, The Story of Alpha: 25 years of Reculturing, describes what students want in a good teacher, which are the very things, the citation read, that describe Professor Kuntz and her teaching:
"Good teachers: are patient and understanding; listen; are friendly; are clear and well organized; are creative and resourceful; are knowledgeable; are flexible and open-minded; are fair ; keep on task; relate well to others; are risk takers; are trustworthy; don't yell; know how to find things out."
A resident of Shelburne for many years, Professor Kuntz now resides in Burlington.
Saint Michael's College, founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 368 Colleges. A liberal arts, residential, Catholic college, Saint Michael's is located just outside of Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns and less than two hours from Montreal. As one of only 270 institutions nationwide with a prestigious Phi Beta Kappa chapter on campus, Saint Michael's has 2,000 full-time undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 200 international students. In recent years Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Science Foundation and other grants, and Saint Michael's professors have been named Vermont Professor of the Year in four of the last eight years. The college is currently listed as one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings.