A Prized Reputation
If you remember the sociology faculty
as some of Rice’s best, their exceptional array of teaching awards
proves you’re not alone.
By David D. Medina
Bill Martin has a simple philosophy aboutteaching: Be prepared,
be kind and courteous to students, make them feel comfortable
in a classroom, and remember their names. Judging from his treasure
chest of prizes, that recipe has worked well for the sociology
professor throughout his 35 years at Rice. Martin has won 11
teaching awards, including seven George R Brown Prizes:four for
Superior Teaching, two for TeachingExcellence, and the prestigious
Lifetime Award, which precludes him from winning further Brown
Awards. These prizes are based on votes by Rice alumni.
Martin is one of several sociology professors who have entered the pantheon
of Rice’s great teachers. Chandler Davidson, Elizabeth Long, and Stephen
Klineberg also have won an extraordinary number of teaching awards. In fact,
they have won so many that their combined efforts have made the sociology department
one of the best-recognized teaching departments at Rice University.
Since the sociology department was established as an autonomous unit at Rice
in 1971, it has won 31 university-wide teaching awards. In absolute numbers,
the department has won more Brown awards than all but three departments in
the university—English, political science, and history. “On a per
capita basis,” Davidson points out, “sociology, with its current
faculty of seven members, has done very well in terms of Brown prizes won since
the inception of the award in 1967.”
Although the sociology department may be small, it has taught more than 12,000
students over the years, and about 600 of those have majored in the discipline.
In addition, the quality of many of those students has been superb. Since 1991,
two have won Rhodes Scholarships, one has received a Fulbright scholarship,
two have won Watson Fellowships, and two have been elected president of the
Student Association—one in two successive years. Davidson notes a certain
inexplicable symmetry in awards that he jokingly attributes to the department’s
good karma: “Our first major to win a Fulbright was Kathy Kobayashi ’72.
Our most-recent one, exactly 30 years later, was Jenny Kaya, like Kathy, a
Japanese American with a last name beginning with ‘K.’” Many
more students have pursued doctorates at universities such as Harvard, Yale,
Duke, Princeton, Berkeley, University of Chicago, and University of North Carolina.
Some now teach sociology. Others have become doctors, journalists, lawyers,
entrepreneurs, schoolteachers, and law enforcement officers.
But teaching is only part of what the sociology department is known for. Research
has been an important concern for the department since its beginning. Department
members regularly publish articles in the discipline’s top scholarly
journals as well as in popular magazines such
as Harper’s and The Atlantic, and they have written and edited numerous
books, including three that won national prizes.
The Harry and Hazel Chavanne Professor of Religion and Public
Policy, Bill Martin has written six books and about 150 articles and has given
hundreds
of talks about the sociology of religion and criminology. His book A Prophet
With Honor: The Billy Graham Story, first published in 1991, will be reissued
soon with four new chapters covering the last 10 years of Graham’s career.
A 1996 book, With God on Our Side, was a companion volume to the PBSseries
of the same title.
Ever since he was a freshman in college, Martin wanted to be a teacher. “I
had this professor who was so excited and involved in what he was doing, and
he conveyed that to me. I thought, ‘This is wonderful. I can go to college
the rest of my life and have it count for work.’”
Martin is now passing that same excitement on to his students. He especially
loves teaching introductory sociology and always volunteers to teach the course—a
task usually reserved for junior members in many departments. “You have
a chance to introduce them to a field that is infinitely fascinating,” he
says, “and for me, getting to start from scratch is a great deal of fun.”
Martin takes extraordinary measures to get to know his students. In the first
couple of classes, he shoots individual pictures of his students—sometimes
as many as 120 in one semester—and by the end of the first week, he knows
their names.
He also asks them to write on a 5" x8" card interesting or unusual
things about their lives, such as having lived in another culture. He has them
write a short paper about a subculture they belong to—for example, a
swimming or music club. In his sociology of religion class, Martin has them
describe their religious backgrounds and indicate the current intensity of
their religious beliefs. In his criminology course, students write about their
experience with the law. He uses that information to get to know the students
better, which makes it easier to engage them in a discussion and share their
knowledge with other students. “Students like to be acknowledged as individuals,” Martin
says.
Matthew Mendenhall ’99, who studied medicine at Stanford University, certainly
appreciated that courtesy. “I was amazed at the time he invests in learning
every student’s name; I was terrified because I could no longer hide in
the crowd and blend in as a number,” Mendenhall says. “Beginning
with the first day, Dr. Martin was treating us as both colleagues and friends.”
