Charles L. Shearer

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Representatives from the Smithsonian Institution and the Filson Club of Louisville will join approximately 60 physicians, historians, and teachers on Wednesday, August 8, to take part in a day-long symposium at Transylvania University focusing on the historically significant early 19th-century heritage of Transylvania’s medical school, along with that of Lexington and the Ohio River Valley. Founded in 1799 as the first medical college west of the Allegheny Mountains, the Transylvania medical department trained more than 6,400 of America’s early physicians before its closing in 1859. These doctors played an important role in spreading the practice of medicine throughout the South and Southwest as the nation expanded westward. “Transylvania’s medical school had a national presence and was spoken of in the same breath as its sister institutions at Pennsylvania, Columbia, Harvard and Dartmouth,” said Transylvania President Charles L. Shearer. “This symposium will shed light on the pioneering role the university played in early American medical education.” The symposium will have a regional character, with participants from throughout Kentucky as well as from Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee. In addition to the Smithsonian and Filson Club, the historic Locust Grove home in Louisville and the Fordham Sciences Library at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, will send representatives. Eric H. Christianson, associate professor and director of graduate studies in history and holder of a joint appointment in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Kentucky, will speak on medical training at

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Philosophy professor Ellen Cox, education professor Kathy Egner, and mathematics professor Kim Jenkins have received Transylvania’s highest teaching honor—The Bingham Award for Excellence in Teaching. The recipients are selected by a committee composed of distinguished professors from leading liberal arts colleges and universities across the country. “The members of the selection committee are always impressed with the quality of teaching at Transylvania,” said President Charles L. Shearer. “We place a high priority on teaching excellence at Transylvania, and that fact is underscored by our Bingham Awards for Excellence in Teaching.” The Bingham Program is unique among faculty incentive programs in that it rewards superior teaching rather than research and its awards are substantial. Recipients receive annual salary supplements for five years and are then reevaluated for annual fellowships for up to 20 years. Cox came to Transylvania in 2002 after earning her Ph.D from DePaul University. With specialization in 20th century continental philosophy and women’s and gender studies, she teaches a range of courses from feminist philosophies to ethical theory. She uses a combination of Socratic teaching and close reading in the classroom, with class periods almost always dialogue driven, and on-going conversations that push students to take positions on the issues. “So much of what students want and expect to learn involves finality, one answer, a conversation closed,” Cox said. “I strive for them to recognize the difficulty and sometimes impossibility of resolving many of the important questions

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