Who’s Ontario’s Best Lecturer? It could be a professor from York!
TVO’s "Big Ideas" is once again searching for the best lecturer from the province’s colleges and universities. And the odds are the more nominations York submits, the more chances a York prof will win.
So visit TVO‘s Web site, find out how to enter and submit your nominations by Oct. 2.
This is TVO’s third Best Lecturer Competition and York profs have been serious contenders in the previous two. In the first competition two years ago, ethnomusicologist Rob Bowman and astronomer Paul Delaney made the top 10 (see YFile Sept. 8, 2005) and communications Prof. Dalton Kehoe and social science Prof. John Dwyer made the top 30 (see YFile Aug. 2, 2005). In the second competition, law Prof. Allan Hutchinson made the top 10 (see YFile Jan. 3, 2007) and six profs — humanities Prof. Andrea Davis, theatre Prof. Robert Fothergill, education Prof. Heather Lotherington, political science Prof. Stephen Newman and law Prof. Alan Young — made the top 30 (see YFile Oct. 30, 2006).
A panel of judges will choose 10 finalists from the nominee list to deliver complete lectures on "Big Ideas" in March 2008. Viewers will be invited to grade each of the finalists and cast their vote for Ontario’s next Best Lecturer. The winner’s institution receives a $10,000 TD Meloche Monnex Scholarship.
Last year’s competition attracted over 250 nominations from students and alumni across Ontario. Michael Persinger of Laurentian University took the title of Ontario’s Best Lecturer and the scholarship prize.
Sponsored by TD Meloche Monnex, Big Ideas’ Best Lecturer Competition on TVO aims to raise awareness about the province’s great educators. "TVO conceived this competition because we know that higher education matters, and more importantly, our viewers agree with that," says producer Wodek Szemberg. "The success of the competition is proof that solid education and an engaging, entertaining learning experience don’t have to be mutually exclusive," he says.