Professor of the Year Redux

OK, I'm taking a few moments while I wait for my friend Janka to show up this morning and spirit me away to the Catholic University of Ruzemberok to try (depending up wifi speed) some pictures of the actual ceremony and reception for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching U.S. Professor of the Year Award. The award ceremony itself was held in the posh W Hotel (thankfully not that W) in downtown Washington. My wonderful friend Debi Preston, who now is a Dean at Montgomery Community College in the Washington area, but who I have known since we used to team-teach classes together back at Georgia Perimeter College in Atlanta was kind enough to act as my date for the award ceremony - which also gave me a chance to see her family again after far too many years (but more on that later). At the award ceremony the forty-five state winners and the four national winners were recognized. I'm posting a picture of the award ceremony and also one of the two of us in our Sunday go to meeting clothes. Later in the evening there was a congressional reception for the winners at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Here's a nice picture of the Richard III statue out front (and I'm just that good an uncle to my nephews). The reception was held in the Great Hall, which was having a Henry VIII exhibit so I was right at home. While there I was fortunate to meet some of the other award winners. The last two pictures are me posing with Rochelle Johnson from the College of Idaho and Leyla Rouhi from Williams College in Massachusetts, and then with Karen Holman from Willamette University in Oregon (who, unfortunately, passed along the sad news that my friend Bob Dash from Willamette, who I met on my first trip to Jordan and who turned out to be just a wonderful guy, had passed away last year of cancer - he was that rare combination, a brilliant scholar and a truly great guy). Overall, it was a great day, and the award itself is very humbling.