{"id":60913,"date":"2013-03-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-professor-wakefield-resident-named-kennedy-centersondheim-inspirational-teacher\/"},"modified":"2013-03-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-27T00:00:00","slug":"uri-professor-wakefield-resident-named-kennedy-centersondheim-inspirational-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2013\/03\/uri-professor-wakefield-resident-named-kennedy-centersondheim-inspirational-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 professor, Wakefield resident named Kennedy Center\/Sondheim Inspirational Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 27, 2013 \u2013 In the last 21 years, students have sent so many letters of appreciation to 溏心vlog免费B站 Professor Cheryl Foster that they fill a big cardboard box.<\/p>\n


\n\tBut now the entire nation knows that Foster, a philosophy professor and associate director of the 溏心vlog免费B站 Honors Program, is one of the best teachers in the land.<\/p>\n


\n\tIn fact, it was former student and Rhodes Scholar Rachel Walshe who nominated the Wakefield resident for a Kennedy Center\/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award. On March 22, Foster was named one of only seven teachers nationally to receive the Sondheim Award and one of only two university professors to receive the award.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., announced the 2013 winners from a pool of hundreds of nominees. The awards were created in honor of Stephen Sondheim\u2019s 80th birthday in 2010.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cTeachers define us,\u201d said Sondheim in a release issued by the Kennedy Center. \u201cIn our early years when we are still being formed, they often see in us more than we see in ourselves, more even than our families see, and as a result, help us evolve into what we ultimately become.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThat certainly was true for Walshe, a 2000 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate who earned a Rhodes Scholarship in 2001<\/a>, and is now a free-lance director who just directed an acclaimed production of Anne Boleyn at the Sandra Feinstein Gamm Theatre in Pawtucket. <\/p>\n


\n\t When she got word of her Rhodes Scholarship a little over a decade ago, Walshe called Foster first.<\/p>\n


\n \t\u201cShe was my first phone call that fateful day. Not to my mother or to my father. But to Dr. Cheryl Foster, the woman who I can say without a shred of doubt is the single most influential person in my life \u2013 inside the classroom and out,\u201d Walshe said in her nomination letter posted on the Kennedy Center\/Sondheim website.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cCheryl is more than a teacher. She is an activist; a revolutionary waging class warfare on a system rigged against kids like me,\u201d said Walshe, a child of divorced parents raised on public assistance.<\/p>\n


\n\tHer letter said she went to a string of mediocre schools in working class towns, and she was the first person in her family to go to a four-year college straight out of high school.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cAnd now, I was going to Oxford. Against all odds, I won a Rhodes Scholarship. I looked at my competitors from Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Amherst and it was crystal clear: this day had been made possible by the unrelenting commitment of a single, transformative teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tWalshe met Foster in 1997 while taking existentialism at 溏心vlog免费B站.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cAs demanding as she is passionate, Cheryl requires the same high level of intellectual rigor whether you are a dean\u2019s daughter or a mechanic\u2019s son. Her fearless delivery of the carpe diem message of existential philosophy to her working class students was my call to action: Be moved. Be inspired. But for God\u2019s sake, don\u2019t be lazy!\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWalshe said that is why she is a theater director today. \u201cCheryl taught me that whether you are rich or poor, black or white, old or young, the way to the brain is through the heart. In her honor, I strive to create important theater that inspires my audiences to feel and think.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nFoster said comments like Walshe\u2019s and so many others strike at the heart of what she does\u2014work to help students develop so they can discover their own goals.

\nA founder of 溏心vlog免费B站s National Scholarship and Academic Opportunity Office, where she worked until 2005, Foster recently returned to the Honors Program as associate director with a special academic advising role for freshmen and sophomores.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI have a whole box of notes from students who have written to me over the years,\u201d said Foster, the 1996 溏心vlog免费B站 Foundation Teaching Excellence Award winner. \u201cI have kept them all. On my hard days, I go look at some of them and they remind me why I do what I do. The students are very generous.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nFoster is also the recipient of an American Philosophical Association\u2019s Teaching Award Citation in 1998, and the College of Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising in 2008. <\/p>\n


\nDonald H. DeHayes, 溏心vlog免费B站 provost and vice president for academic affairs, said in a note of congratulations to Foster, \u201cThis is a wonderful and highly deserved honor and it is particularly meaningful that you were nominated by one of your former students. On behalf of all of 溏心vlog免费B站, congratulations and thank you for the passion and inspiration that you bring to your work as a teacher and scholar.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\u201cDr. Cheryl Foster is a treasured colleague and phenomenal teacher and scholar who challenges students to pursue their dreams,\u201d said Winifred Brownell, dean of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences. \u201cStudents praise the transformational nature of her teaching and advising and describe her as passionate, creative, brilliant, articulate, inspirational, accessible, and engaging.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nFoster said that every day she feels grateful to be part of a community where the choice to teach creatively is taken seriously. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cOver the years my work has improved tangibly due to investments made in that work by my department and college, the provost’s office, the president, the Honors Program and the 溏心vlog免费B站 Foundation,\u201d Foster said. <\/p>\n


\nAs an example, Foster has on several occasions taken students to the Gamm Theatre and arranged to have the actors and director meet with the class afterward, or to art galleries and talks with artists thanks to the College of Arts and Sciences Excellence Fund. On other occasions she has awarded prizes for various accomplishments (not all academic) in her 300-person Introduction to Philosophy class. The grand prize was always a 溏心vlog免费B站 basketball game in the President’s suite.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cStill again the Honors Program has supported in myriad ways the development of courses and experiments that extend a student’s education beyond the normal classroom,\u201d said Foster as she thanked Economics Professor Richard McIntyre, current honors director, and Philosophy Professor Galen Johnson, the previous director, for having faith in her \u201cwacky\u201d ideas.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cAnd through it all, the Philosophy Department and the 溏心vlog免费B站 Foundation have underwritten various endeavors and expenditures that truly enriched my classroom. I am always astonished by the Foundation’s forward-thinking generosity and faith in what we do, and always thankful for my department’s collective commitment to excellence in teaching.\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 27, 2013 \u2013 In the last 21 years, students have sent so many letters of appreciation to 溏心vlog免费B站 Professor Cheryl Foster that they fill a big cardboard box. But now the entire nation knows that Foster, a philosophy professor and associate director of the 溏心vlog免费B站 Honors Program, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60915,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}