Hegarty Award Citation for Professor Wendy Chapman Peek

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 2004 Academic Convocation, Stonehill College is proud to bestow the Louise F. Hegarty Award for Excellence in Teaching on Professor Wendy Chapman Peek.

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

 

Professor Peek’s assignments and positive feedback instilled in me a confidence in writing I never thought possible. She opened my eyes to new ways of looking at poetry and prose and incited in me a passion for film.

 

Her classes are positively charged and inviting. Regardless of her demanding class participation policy, students participate because they feel comfortable contributing to the elevated intellectual conversation and because her style generates a sense of ease.

 

I can honestly say her class has been my most challenging, yet rewarding, academic experience. Professor Peek motivates us to participate fully in class activities. She has a great gift for sparking debate, and she is always receptive to new perspectives. She is undeniably a challenging Professor, but I walk away from her class with a feeling of accomplishment.

 

Wendy Peek personifies the ideal educator. While she is known for the rigor of her expectations, she gives students intellectual rewards in return. . . . She is challenging, but fair; she recognizes potential in her students and accepts nothing less. You know a Professor is doing her job well when you find yourself wishing the class would never end.

 

Professor Peek is a living treasure in the English Department and the College. A crowd gathers around her like bees (or is it bears?) to a honey-pot: both students and an entourage of professors. All respond to the sense of fun, the wit, the silliness, the brilliance, the thoughtfulness (for animals great and small, for human beings short and tall, for food, for food for thought)—and that marvelous, infectious laugh. She sustains and inspires, and she’s just immensely “with it.”

 

And so with deep pride we today recognize Professor Wendy Chapman Peek for exemplifying Stonehill’s commitment to academic excellence.

 

Given this second day of September,

Two thousand and four.

 

 

 

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

President