CGS Professor Peter Busher Honored with a Metcalf Award
Read the full story at BU Today.
When Peter Busher heard he had been nominated for a Metcalf Award for Teaching Excellence this year, he was honored. But after a 28-year teaching career that had yielded at least five previous nominations, he figured his chances this time around were slim.
“The joke is that it’s like the soap opera awards,” says Busher, a College of General Studies professor and chair of the division of natural science. “You might get nominated all the time, but you never win!”
Then he won.
Although he introduces himself as a biologist, Busher also teaches evolution, environmental science, astronomy, and physics. His course load includes teaching large required freshman and sophomore courses. His student evaluations rank him among the college’s top five teachers. Comments range from “the best science professor I’ve ever had” to “great moustache.”
Busher places the emphasis back on his students.
“Any effective teaching I may be involved in is not so much about my approach to teaching, but about what my students do,” he says. “They have great capacity to stretch the thought process and make you think about things you wouldn’t consider.”
The winners of the Metcalf Award and the Metcalf Cup and Prize — the University’s highest teaching honors — were announced at the annual Senior Breakfast on Friday and will be presented at Commencement on Sunday, May 17.
Established in 1973 by a gift from the late Arthur G. B. Metcalf (Wheelock’35, Hon.’74), a former faculty member and chairman emeritus of the Board of Trustees, the honors are an expression of gratitude to teachers who students regard as defining figures. The award comes with a prize of $5,000.
A committee selects the winner using statements of pedagogy from the nominees. Letters of recommendation from current and former students are key, drawing committee members into the classroom to experience a professor’s energy and enthusiasm.
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Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching
The Metcalf Awards are given annually to one or more finalists in the competition for the Metcalf Cup and Prize. The winners of the Metcalf Awards each receive $5,000.
“The Metcalf Awards for Excellence in Teaching express Boston University’s understanding of the centrality of teaching in higher education,” President Emeritus Jon Westling has stated.
“A university is many things: an active tradition of inquiry, attentiveness, respect for the past and the future, a struggle to comprehend the world and the ideas we have of it, and a community defined by its open-ended debates.”
Teaching is what elevates and unifies these diverse elements and brings them directly into the lives of students. By recognizing and encouraging outstanding teaching, the Metcalf Awards express Boston University’s deepest purpose.