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Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award
A $2,500 award goes to a faculty member who has shown unusual concern for students and made
significant contributions to University life for at least a decade.
John D. Arras
Porterfield Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Professor of Philosophy
Teaching Statement
Teaching without passion for one's subject matter is a crime
(or at least a serious tort) against the young. ... If you don't care deeply about your students
both as thinkers and as persons, you're in the wrong profession.
His Nominees Said:
One hears considerable hype about the "synergy" of teaching and research, but John in his
unpretentious, low-tech, Bull Durham way combines the two activities effortlessly with no need for neologism.
-- Mitchell S. Green, associate professor of philosophy
John is a masterful teacher. He brings himself and his vast knowledge base to each teaching encounter,
with a philosopher's ability to challenge, reflect, debate and thoroughly dissect the topic at hand.
-- Ann B. Hamric, associate professor of nursing and faculty affiliate, Center for Biomedical Ethics
Professor Arras is a kind, homey, completely down-to-earth guy who often shows up to class wearing a cowboy hat,
corduroys and a trench coat. He has a wonderful (tastefully) bawdy and (uncynically) sarcastic sense of humor,
and can go toe-to-toe with any class clown. He takes students seriously, is utterly without pretension, and as a
result is the most approachable – and most approached – professor that I’ve ever met.
-- Benjamin Krohmal, former student
Excerpted from http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/2005/08/faculty_award.html
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