-by Molly C. Braswell, Staff Writer; Image: Dr. Chew at the November 17 ceremony (Image Source: Samford.edu)

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has named Samford University’s Dr. Stephen Chew Professor of the Year.

“Once you adopt the attitude that the measure of teaching effectiveness is student learning, a lot of teaching’s most difficult conundrums become solvable,” Chew said during his acceptance speech. “You learn the difference between teaching that makes it easy for students to learn and teaching that makes it easy for students to make a good grade; you give up moving from teaching fad to teaching fad and start to develop knowledge that will move the whole teaching enterprise forward; you give up the idea that good students make for good classes; and you realize that great teachers can create great students, and great students, like Amy Fineburg [a former Chew student], can inspire and create great teachers.”

Chew has been honored with many prestigious awards. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching also honored him in 2001 as the Alabama Professor of the Year. The American Psychological Association honored him with the Robert S. Daniel Teaching Excellence Award in 2005, which is given to the best psychology professor at a four year university in the United States. Samford bestowed upon him in 1999 with the John H. Buchanan Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching.

Chew is the chair of the psychology department at the Birmingham, Ala., university. He has taught at Samford since 1993. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas and his doctorate from the University of Minnesota.