Willamette Professor Named Oregon Professor of the Year

Ellis’ students and colleagues attest that his teaching style and willingness to mentor others are as deserving of recognition as his scholarship.

Willamette University's Professor Richard Ellis Photo: Willamette University

(SALEM, Ore.) - The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education have named Richard Ellis at Willamette University the 2008 Oregon Professor of the Year.

Ellis, the Mark O. Hatfield Professor of Politics, was selected from nearly 300 top professors. Winners from 44 states, the District of Columbia and Guam were announced today in Washington, D.C. Ellis is Willamette’s ninth Oregon Professor of the Year since 1990.

“I feel honored to be in the same category as the other outstanding Willamette teachers who have received this award,” Ellis said. “The award is an affirmation for me that it’s possible to be both a good scholar and a good teacher.”

Ellis began teaching at Willamette in 1990 and is known nationally as an expert on the American presidency, the initiative process and American political culture. He has authored or co-edited 13 books, including To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance, which received the Langum Prize in Legal History, and his latest, Presidential Travel: The Journey from George Washington to George W. Bush. In 2007 the Oregon Academy of Science honored him as Oregon Outstanding Researcher of the Year.

“Being named Oregon Professor of the Year means more to me than the accolades I’ve received for scholarship because I feel teaching is the most important thing I do at Willamette,” Ellis said.

Ellis’ students and colleagues attest that his teaching style and willingness to mentor others are as deserving of recognition as his scholarship. In a letter of recommendation for Ellis’ nomination, 2006 Willamette graduate Alexis Walker called his classes “thought provoking, effective and rigorous.”

“Along with being a talented teacher, Professor Ellis stands out among the Willamette faculty for the care and devotion he has for his students,” she wrote. “He has time and again gone out of his way to be there for me and countless other students, not because he has to, but because he genuinely cares.”

Carol Long, dean of Willamette’s College of Liberal Arts, said, “Research, logic, debate and constant thoughtful questioning inform Richard Ellis’ teaching style in ways that help students to move beyond superficial assumptions into the deeper levels of understanding that will challenge them to accomplish more than they have ever imagined.”

CASE and the Carnegie Foundation have been partners in honoring Professors of the Year since 1981. TIAA-CREF, higher education’s premier retirement system, became the primary sponsor for the awards ceremony in 2000. Additional support for the program is received from a number of higher education associations, including Phi Beta Kappa