October 7, 2019 – Three professors in the College were honored with the President’s Awards for Distinguished Scholar-Teachers this past week. Alison Mackey, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Linguistics, John R. McNeill, University Professor in the Department of History, and Cristina Sanz, Professor and Chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese received the honors.
These awards commend faculty who were nominated by their
students and faculty peers for outstanding service to our community and to the
Academy as exemplary scholar-teachers, embodying Georgetown’s mission as a
student-centered research University.
“Our awardees represent the very best of Georgetown: the blending of academic expertise, innovative research, and impactful pedagogy that draws out the ambitions and abilities of our students and faculty,” President John J. DeGioia stated.
All three professors have deep roots in the Humanities. Both Mackey and Sanz are linguists with expertise in bilingualism and how second languages are learned and taught, and McNeill has taught more than 3,000 students in his classes on world history, international relations history, grand strategy, African history, and environmental history.
The following recipients were honored at the Fall Faculty Convocation on Wednesday, October 23, 2019:
Alison Mackey,
an internationally renowned scholar in the field of Applied Linguistics, joined
our community in 1998. Her research focuses on how second languages are
learned, and how they may best be taught. Dr. Mackey’s scholarly output has led
to over 16,800 citations, 15 books, and more than 100 book chapters and
articles, and she is frequently rated as one of the most highly cited scholars
in the world in the field of applied linguistics and second language acquisition.
Her co-edited Handbook of Applied Linguistics won the 2013
Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize from the Modern Language Association. She serves
as Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, a
testament to her stature in her field, and under her leadership, the journal
rose to rank first out of 181 journals in Linguistics in 2017 Impact Factor.
Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Linguistics, she is also an
outstanding mentor for her graduate students, providing research and
professional development opportunities to graduate students, including the 31
Ph.D. students she has directly supervised, many of whom personally attested to
how they have benefited from her steadfast commitment to their growth and
inclusion in her research. We are proud to recognize Dr. Mackey’s powerful
example of committed scholarship and teaching. She is a model contributing
member of our academic community.
John R. McNeill,
current President of the American Historical Association, has been teaching at
Georgetown since 1985 and was named a University Professor in 2006. He has
taught more than 3,000 students in his classes on world history, international
relations history, grand strategy, African history, and environmental history.
His prolific scholarly contributions include dozens of articles and many
co-edited volumes, six sole- and co-authored books that have helped to create
and define the academic field of environmental history, the study of the
reciprocal relationship between global human history and the natural world. His
book, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the
20th-Century World, published in 2000, was recognized by the London Times as
one of the ten best science books ever written, and it won the World History
Association’s Book Prize and the Forest History Society’s Weyerhauser Book
Prize. He is the recipient of two Fulbright research awards, a Guggenheim,
fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Center, and
the Heineken Prize from the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in
2017 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. More
recently, Dr. McNeill has been diligently co-authoring papers with geologists,
biologists, and chemists on the theme of the Anthropocene, the proposed
geological epoch that is distinguished by the magnitude of human impacts on the
Earth system. He is known as a generous mentor and professor, having served as
an advisor or committee member for countless Ph.D. students in his tenure at Georgetown.
We are truly privileged to have in Dr. McNeill a ground-breaking scholar, a
thoughtful colleague, an excellent mentor, and a teacher of the highest
caliber.
Cristina Sanz came to Georgetown in 1994 and has
been an integral member of the Georgetown community ever since. In her
research, Dr. Sanz is internationally famous for her interdisciplinary research
on second language development and multilingualism. Her experimental studies
demonstrate the complex interplay between learning contexts such as
computer-delivered instruction and immersion abroad and the individual
differences that learners contribute to the process of acquiring a new
language. Dr. Sanz has published over 90 volumes, articles and book chapters in
prestigious scholarly venues, and her edited volume Mind and Context in
Adult SLA received the 2006 MLA’s Mildenberger Award. Most recently
she co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Study Abroad Research and
Practice (2018). In addition to her work as Professor and Chair in the
Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Dr. Sanz directs the Intensive Spanish
Program, the School of Foreign Service Spanish Program, the Catalan
Lectureship, and the Barcelona Summer Program, which has become a model for
other linguistic and cultural immersion programs. She is a beloved teacher,
receiving the 2014 College Dean’s Award for Undergraduate Teaching, and a
wonderful mentor of Ph.D. students who praise her thoughtful guidance. Her
presence and work at Georgetown has helped gain the university an international
reputation as a global leader in the theory and practice of innovative second
language instruction. Dr. Sanz was nominated for this award by a chorus of
faculty colleagues and her numerous Ph.D. students who have all been profoundly
impacted by her generosity, brilliance, and leadership in her field.
