Wayne LaMorte Wins 2011 Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching
Wayne LaMorte’s painful, heartfelt description of his first foray into teaching sounds like a primer of exactly how not to teach.
“I was so uncomfortable. I had reams of notes, I was tied to the podium, I over-rehearsed my notes, and had things underlined. I’m sure I was very stiff. It was awful,” said LaMorte, professor of epidemiology and assistant dean for education at the School of Public Health. “I at least prepared the lectures carefully, and they were very logical, but I wasn’t very engaging.”
Nearly two decades after this rocky start, LaMorte was announced last week as a winner of Boston University’s highest teaching award, the Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching. Lamorte will receive his Metcalf Award at BU’s 2011 Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 22, along with two colleagues, David Walker, from the School of Law, and Judith Chaffee, from the College of Fine Arts. LaMorte has previously received the Norman Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest teaching award at BUSPH.
Now that he has won several teaching awards, LaMorte feels more comfortable revealing what an uncomfortable teacher he initially was. He recalls being asked to teach a section of epidemiology for medical students and an introductory class for SPH students. “Both times I said, ‘No. I’m not a teacher, I don’t know how to teach’ but really…I was deathly afraid of public speaking”, Lamorte said. “I had a disabling phobia. I was completely paralyzed.”
Fortunately, LaMorte said, “They kept asking me to teach this section. I thought to myself that I have to solve this problem, so I finally said yes.
“If you have that kind of a phobia, the only thing you can do is gradually put yourself in situations where you have to stand and deliver.”
While transforming himself into a master teacher, LaMorte has been an early adopter of technology. He was among the first BU professors to develop multimedia web sites for his courses, to test “clickers” to enhance classroom instruction, and to utilize other high-tech tools such as LCD projection and streaming video.
“So now I never use notes, I never stand behind the podium, and if someone asks me a question I don’t have the answer to, if I can turn that into a teaching moment and get a discussion going,” LaMorte said. “If you can get everyone in the room thinking, all 120 of them, that’s the best. “
With the help of Rob Schadt, director of the Office of Teaching, Learning, & Technology, LaMorte has created multimedia modules that students can access on laptops or other mobile devices. Colleagues have reported seeing students riding the bus while watching LaMorte’s epidemiology lectures on their smartphones.
“One of the things I’m really excited about is revamping both of the courses that I’m teaching here during the summer,” LaMorte said. “I’m going to a very web-based format to kind of flip the classroom. I want to use technology more for content delivery.”
Lisa Sullivan, BUSPH associate dean for education and a 2001 Metcalf Award winner, said LaMorte is an educator in every sense of the word, and spends countless hours preparing his lectures to engage students.
“He uses technology efficiently to maximize students’ learning. In fact, Wayne is the leader in the use of technology at our School. He doesn’t use technology for the sake of it – he uses technology to illustrate key concepts with real and relevant examples and to provide students the opportunity to work through realistic problems to build their skills and confidence levels,” Sullivan said. “His courses are exciting and practical. Students work extremely hard in his courses and feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment and real pride in their learning.”
LaMorte’s embrace of novel teaching methods was recognized in 2009 with the first BUSPH Educational Innovation Award, which recognizes “creative contributions to the development of innovative tools for the presentation of coursework, new curriculum design, and contributions to an improved teaching and learning environment at the School.”
In 2008, LaMorte was awarded an Advisor of the Year honor for his work with the Undergraduate Public Health Association, an advocacy group for undergraduate students studying or interested in public health.
LaMorte’s own interest in public health was an unanticipated offshoot of his medical background. LaMorte began training in surgery, but realized that it wasn’t what he wanted to do and shifted into research, eventually becoming the chief of the research section at BUSM. While his focus on research led to a PhD in biochemistry, he said he eventually became disenchanted with the medical model of health care.
“I was moonlighting in the emergency room while I doing some of my research, and I constantly had this feeling that…they just keep coming. I patch them up and send them out and they just keep coming again,” LaMorte said. “Over time, that basic notion just grew in my mind, the importance of trying to prevent disease rather than just treat it.”
The proactive, knowledge-based aspect of public health appealed to LaMorte, but he says he was drawn to it for good by the people he met while pursuing his MPH at BUSPH. “The school is a collection of bright people who don’t have attitudes. I found that really refreshing,” LaMorte said.
“Not only is the faculty and staff here different, but the students are different. By and large, we have a student body of people who are not really motivated by making huge amounts of money. They basically want to go out and save the world. To be part of that, to be part of their education, to feel like you’re playing some sort of a role, it’s the beast feeling in the world. It’s absolutely special.”
The Metcalf Cup and Awards are were established in 1973 by a gift from the late Dr. Arthur G. B. Metcalf to create “a systematic procedure for the review of the quality of teaching at Boston University and the identification and advancement of those members of the faculty who excel as teachers.”
The search for the Metcalf Award winners is a months-long process, during which nominees are thoroughly vetted by the Metcalf Committee. The group is chaired by the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education and consists of several past Metcalf Award recipients and two undergraduate students. The committee solicits statements from candidates on their approaches to teaching, reviews student evaluations and grading patterns, examines course syllabi and graded assignments, considers letters of recommendation from current and former students and observes candidates teaching.
Submitted by Michael Saunders