SC Governor’s Professor of the Year Awards Presented

Columbia, SC—The winners of the 2009 Governor’s Professor of the Year award were honored Thursday at the State House.

The award is given each year to a faculty member, from both a 2-year and 4-year institution, who has demonstrated exceptional teaching performance.

Every school is the state is eligible to nominate a member of their faculty and the winners are selected by a committee established by the governor and the state Commission on Higher Education.

This year’s honorees included, Susan Anderson, the Director of the Dance Program at the University of South Carolina, and Chris Thomas, an Instructor of Psychology at Florence-Darlington Technical College (FDTC).

Anderson first joined the South Carolina faculty in 1975 and as the founding member of the USC Dance Company she has worked to build the dance program at Carolina.

A former professional dancer, with the Ballet of San Francisco and the Los Angeles Dance Theatre, Anderson says she was shocked to learn of the award.

“I’m elated, but I’m also in awe of all the other professors in the state of South Carolina that are equally deserving at other institutions of higher education. It is an amazing time for the arts and for a female professor in the arts,” said Anderson.

“It just gives me the inspiration to continue working at the high level that we have been working to achieve a dance program with an international reputation.”

Anderson says there was only one dance course at USC when she arrived in Columbia.

Now the university offers a BA degree in Dance Education that includes 65 courses and currently has 85 students majoring in the program.

“It has been hard work,” since those early days, says Anderson.

“But it’s all worth it. I’ve been all over the world with my career and now I see that my students are going on to really wonderful international endeavors and that’s what’s exciting.”

Some of her former students have performed on Broadway and have worked with the American Ballet Theatre and the National Ballet of Sweden.

However, Anderson says there are many people that also deserve credit for the award.

“I have a lot of wonderful people who work for me in the dance program and in the department of theatre and dance and all of those people make me look really good.”

Thomas, of Hartsville, has taught at FDTC since 1999 and was recently named the school’s Instructor of the Year.

Thomas, who has also taught at Francis Marion University and Horry-Georgetown Technical College, says he’s awestruck by receiving the award.

“It feels fantastic. And I’m a humble person so this is not something that, when I set out to teach, to get awards or things like that really, but it is such an honor. I’m grateful and thankful for it,” said Thomas.

He says it’s a wonderful feeling to know that a teacher can make a difference in a student’s life.

“It tells me that I need to continue the things that I’m doing. I’ve been reinforced by this. Using psychology lingo, positively reinforced by it, and I want to continue to do the things that I’m doing in the classroom to help my students learn in the best way possible.”

Thomas learned of the award when a group to school administrators and media entered his classroom during a lecture.

“It was quite an honor to have it done that way in front of the students.”

However after first seeing the crowd, Thomas joked, “I’m glad they had smiles on their faces, because if not, I thought I might be arrested, but they had smiles on their faces so I knew it was actually a very positive thing.”

Since 1988, the award has been given to 35 faculty members from both public and private colleges and universities from across the state.