Oxford faculty members are among the nation’s leaders in higher education, known for their creativity in the classroom. Teaching always comes first in Emory University’s liberal arts-intensive program in Oxford, Georgia, and Oxford College professors are passionate, dedicated, and accessible. As a result, Oxford students thrive.
When Patricia Owen-Smith first started teaching more than 20 years ago, she discovered that traditional classroom approaches often produced good test scores but little actual learning. So she threw them out. Instead, she favored group discussions over lectures, sent her students into the community to learn through experience, and traded exams for student writing projects.
Some of those ideas were considered unorthodox at the time; one colleague called her “undisciplined” and “a loose cannon.” But it turns out she was right. Today faculty members nationwide are following suit. And Owen-Smith, Oxford professor of psychology and women’s studies, continues to explore new ideas in teaching as director of Oxford’s Institutional Leadership Program. Funded by the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, the program is one of only 12 in the nation. Its goal, quite simply, is to improve learning.
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