Surrounded by family and friends and introduced by former student Amy Fineburg, Samford’s Stephen Chew stepped to the podium last week at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. to accept the award of U. S. Professor of the Year.  In his brief remarks, he said,  “Once you adopt the attitude that the measure of teaching effectiveness is student learning, a lot of teaching’s most difficult conundrums become solvable.  You learn the difference between teaching that makes it easy for students to learn and teaching that makes it easy for students to make a good grade; you give up moving from teaching fad to teaching fad and start to develop knowledge that will move the whole teaching enterprise forward; you give up the idea that good students make for good classes; and you realize that great teachers can create great students, and great students, like Amy Fineburg, can inspire and create great teachers.” 

   

The world is better because Stephen Chew never gave up on finding better ways to teach.  Even with the new plaque on his wall, he’s still learning.