Classmates watch while fourth-year undergraduate Jeb Sophia
walks on a treadmill for an experiment in Psychology professor
Dennis Proffitt's (left front) course on perceptions.
for superb teaching
By Ida Lee Wootten
professor Dennis R. Proffitt, who began a two-year term as Cavalier
Distinguished Teaching Chair this fall, wants to use his new position
to raise public awareness of how research enhances teaching.
for his studies on visual perception, Profitt believes that top
research universities such as U.Va. give faculty an opportunity
to illustrate basic concepts through their own laboratory studies
and to directly involve students in their ongoing research. He
is leading a number of research programs that employ virtual reality
technology. One study is examining the relationship between vision
and motor skills, and another is investigating spatial updating,
or the ability to locate an object that has gone out of sight.
awarded the Cavalier professorships are expected to work closely
with the Teaching Resource Center on ways to enhance teaching
at the University. Proffitt, who will likely lead a University
Seminar related to his virtual reality studies, sees the award
as a way to promote the value of research in teaching.
"To effectively teach students about the significance of
research findings, faculty need to make connections between the
laboratory and the real world,² said Proffitt, founding director
of the cognitive science degree program, who received an All-University
Outstanding Teaching Award in 1997. "The ability to explain
these connections is an important component of teaching.²
in 1991 with a $200,000 gift from the Athletics department's proceeds
from the 1990 Sugar Bowl and supplemented since with receipts
from three other Bowl games, the Cavalier chair recognizes eminent
scholars who excel in teaching undergraduates. Honorees are awarded
an additional two-ninths of their annual salary plus a $2,000
professor Kenneth G. Elzinga was the first to be appointed to
the endowed chair. Chemistry professor Dean Harmon was the second
to receive the honor, and English professor Karen S. Chase was
named chair last year.
Deans nominate candidates for the chair each spring. The nominations
are reviewed by a committee appointed by Vice President and Provost
Peter Low, who makes the two-year-long appointments. The process
assures that there are two chair holders every academic year.
hope over time is that we can develop a culture in which our best
teachers exert University-wide influence on the quality of teaching
by others," Low said.