Hegarty Award Citation for Professor Robert G. Goulet

The Louise F. Hegarty Award for Excellence in Teaching is given each year to a full-time faculty member whose teaching has had a marked influence on the lives of Stonehill students.  The Committee on Excellence in Teaching, representing Students, Faculty, and the Alumni Council, selects the outstanding teacher from those nominated by students and faculty members.  The award is named in honor of one of Stonehill’s most accomplished teachers and the recipient stands as a symbol of the entire faculty’s commitment to teaching and academic excellence. At this 2002 Academic Convocation, Stonehill College is proud to bestow the Louise F. Hegarty Award for Excellence in Teaching on Professor Robert G. Goulet.

Professor Goulet’s commitment to Stonehill’s mission is abundantly clear in the words of those who nominated him. We will let them speak for themselves.

 

Film was never a subject I was very interested in until I met Professor Goulet. I remember well how intimidated I was to speak in class about an unfamiliar subject. Professor Goulet, with his broad knowledge and overwhelming enthusiasm, quickly made me feel comfortable in class and soon had me speaking and writing about film with the same enthusiasm.

 

A Goulet class is one of excitement and thrill. Professor Goulet engages his students and challenges them to think critically about literature and film. I will never look at a movie the same way again.

 

Over the past three years, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of having Professor Goulet as a teacher. I can honestly say I’ve never had another professor who was so enthusiastic and so happy about his job.

 

There is simply no other faculty member who reinvents his courses and himself with the dexterity of Woody Allen’s Zelig. . . . His evaluations offer universal praise for his enthusiasm, his rigor, his sense of fun, his sense of fair play. In fact, the most wonderful thing about Professor Goulet’s teaching is that the more experienced he gets, the more willing he seems to dive into new waters, to test ground, to experiment and create.

 

He devises truly ingenious assignments to motivate and awaken students’ creativity. Yet Bob’s most enduring contribution to the College may be in the education of his colleagues. In addition to sharing the wealth of the Bob Goulet Lending Library, Bob has also taught us invaluable lessons, from the practical—about filmed materials that would compliment our teaching—to the theoretical—that films are not idle entertainment but vital texts that themselves participate in the formation of culture.

 

And so with deep pride we today recognize Professor Robert G. Goulet for exemplifying Stonehill’s commitment to academic excellence.

 

Given this fifth day of September,

Two thousand and two.

 

 

 

Rev. Mark T. Cregan, C.S.C.

President