04/17/2009
Timothy Davis, an assistant professor of physical education at SUNY Cortland, has been named the College's eighth recipient of the Dr. Rozanne Brooks Dedicated Teacher Award. He will be formally recognized on Thursday, May 7, during the College's annual Professional and Faculty Awards Ceremony.
The Brooks Award honors a faculty member who devotes a significant amount of time both to teaching and to working with students outside of class.
The award was endowed through the generosity of the late Rozanne Marie Brooks, a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor and SUNY Cortland professor emerita of sociology and anthropology, and her former students, friends and colleagues. A SUNY Cortland faculty member for 36 years, Brooks died in 1997. The first award was presented in Spring 1998.
A $5,000 honorarium is included with the award for use in enhancing the recipient's teaching initiatives.
Davis, of Homer, N.Y., is in the beginning stages of exploring the Brooks Award stipend use with other faculty and students.
"I want to keep it local and community and student centered," said Davis. "Developing a project on which students and the community can work together for mutual benefit is ideal. The emphasis is on creating long-term impact that supports students to participate in service learning."
"Professor Davis is a dedicated and outstanding teacher," said Professor Emerita of Music Donna Anderson, speaking on behalf of the Selection Committee. "His classes are exciting, challenging and filled with energy. He expects professionalism both in behavior and academic performance from each individual student in his classroom as well as from the community of students in his classroom. Professor Davis' students respond to his expectations by being active and vigorous contributors to class discussion, always listening, always questioning, always engaged."
Other Selection Committee members include two former Brooks Award recipients, Professor Emerita of Foundations and Social Advocacy Mary Lee Martens, and Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences Timothy Baroni, the recipient of a SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching.
The selection committee noted that Davis' work outside the classroom is prodigious.
He developed a partnership with the J.M. McDonald Sports Complex and the Cortland Homer Afterschool Mentorship Program (CHAMPS), which is an extension of his Motor Development undergraduate course. The program places his students as afterschool mentors to at-risk youth ages five to 14. The advisors emphasize homework, healthy snack choices and quality physical activity.
"CHAMPS is a win-win situation for both SUNY Cortland students and students in the community," Davis said. "I try to create opportunity where it doesn't exist."
A current student, former student and colleague offered their insights on Davis as a teacher.
"Even though I was the first individual with a physical disability to graduate from SUNY Cortland with a physical education degree, Dr. Davis continues to advocate for other students with disabilities," said one former student, Thomas Moran '03 of Waynesboro, Va. "He is the sole reason why I am where I am today. He encouraged me to work at DeRuyter (N.Y.) Central School and assist them in creating an appropriate adapted physical education program. Following my years at DeRuyter, he advocated for me to pursue my doctorate at the University of Virginia, his alma mater, where I will receive my doctorate this spring."
"Dr. Davis is not only an outstanding professor, but he is also a motivating mentor, an immensely imaginative inventor and an inspirational role model," said Brandon Herwick, a senior physical education major with a concentration in adapted physical education from Coxsackie, N.Y.
"Tim walks the walk," said Lynn Couturier, professor of physical education and chair of the Physical Education Department. "He is devoted to creating meaningful learning experiences for his students and is constantly generating new ideas to ensure they have an authentic experience. He develops community programs that benefit the participants and, at the same time, give our students the confidence and skills they need to succeed as teachers and leaders."
Davis joined SUNY Cortland in 1998 as an assistant professor of adapted physical education and received tenure in 2004. From 1995-97, he was an instructor in the Department of Health and Physical Education at the University of Virginia. Davis coordinated grants and instructed at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., from 1991-94.
He currently serves on the College's Student Affairs Committee as the School of Professional Studies representative for the Faculty Senate. Davis directs the Adapted Sports and Adventure Camp at SUNY Cortland and is faculty advisor for the College's baseball team and for Project LEAPE (Leadership and Exercise in Adapted Physical Education). Since 2002, he has chaired the Adapted Physical Education National Standards Project (APENS), which provides national standards and certification examination for adapted physical educators.
Davis works as an advisor for Flaghouse Inc., where he designs, develops and reviews adapted physical education equipment; and GEOFITNESS Inc., where he acts as a consultant by infusing disability-specific content in existing programs for several school districts in New York state and one in Anchorage, Alaska.
A grant review committee member for the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Recreation Services in the Division of Personnel Preparation since 2001, Davis has been awarded many College, state, federal and private grants.
Davis has presented at numerous international and national conferences and has written for several publications and children's books.
A native of Reno, Nev., Davis received a Bachelor of Arts in Physical Education from California State University, Chico, where he also has a Master of Arts in Adapted Physical Education and Early Intervention. He earned a Doctorate in Adapted Physical Education and Early Childhood Special Education from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
For more information about the Brooks Dedicated Teacher Award, contact SUNY Cortland Vice President for Institutional Advancement Raymond Franco at (607) 753-2518.