These awards are given for academic enthusiasm that manages to keep me in my office well beyond the 7 p.m. m y office hours dictate. They are for creative intellectual energy at every level of learning. And over the next couple of weeks, I'll link to samples of their contributions. Congratulations, kids. I'm proud of you!

• Award for Best Directors of the Dear Habermas Site in Fall 2001
  to Darby Southgate and Tyron Turner for their work on building the site.

  Darby contributed music and is developing that component of the site, as well as her extensive reading in Weber and her commitment to social justice. Tyron contributed unfailing confidence refusing to be colonized by the hierarchical patterns of the university as corporation, and absolute dedication to covering even the texts of courses he had previously dropped. Yeah, you guessed it, on Weber!

  

• Award for Most Courageous Undergraduate of Fall 2001
  To Kerry Partika for the Zambia Connection with Father Peter.

  Kerry took so readily to building networks that she began writing to distant networks and expressing her feelings about issues we were discussing. One of those issues was the need for help in poor rural areas, and our need to learn to understand the "Other" of these regions so different from our own. After meeting Father Peter (of Zambia), Kerry undertook correspondence to start up our network in Zambia, and has followed it through. She has made the contacts, collected the correspondence, and will be presenting our efforts in this direction in Moot Court 2002.

  

• Award for Most Heroic Action in Learning to Use the Site in Fall 2001
  To Robert Walker and Denise Scurlock.

  Robert and Denise had encountered disaster with my teaching style in previous semesters. I demanded conceptual linking, and they each respectively blinked at my unreason. Ever persistent, both came back this semester, and both grew by leaps and bounds in their understanding of conceptual linking in critial thought. We have a long way yet to go, but I hope to see them back again. Denise learned to apply the concepts of sociology of law to personal experiences in matters of critical race theory. And Robert crowed over his understanding of divergent and convergent production in thought patterns, which he shared with every classmate who would listen. Congratualations to both of you. This sort of learning makes teaching worthwhile.

More awards up soon. . . . jeanne