Frederickson, Melley named Distinguished Educators


Mary Frederickson, associate professor of history, and Tim Melley, associate professor of English, have been named College of Arts and Science Distinguished Educators for 2005-06.

Each will receive a $2,000 professional expense account and present a lecture during the academic year.

Frederickson has taught courses ranging from a survey of U.S. history to seminars on topics like oral history, women, and the legacy of Brown vs. Board of Education since joining the Miami faculty in 1988. She is best known for her efforts to present the “other sides” of U.S. history to her students, the ways in which class, race, gender and ethnicity have intersected our nation’s history.

She won the Alumnae Teaching Award in 1993 and was named Honors Program Professor of the Year in 1995. She was a Bye-Fellow at Selwyn College, Cambridge, in 2000 and is an affiliate in American studies and women’s studies.

Frederickson has published widely. Her book, A Place to Speak our Minds: The Southern Summer School for Women Workers in Industry, 1927-1950, is soon to be published by Indiana University Press. She has directed 11 doctoral theses and nine master’s theses.

Mary Frederickson, associate professor of history

Since joining Miami’s faculty in 1995, Melley has designed and taught 25 different courses, ranging from surveys of English and American literature to composition courses to a fiction-writing workshop.

Many of his courses have an interdisciplinary approach, including a seminar on race relations for the honors program and a seminar on the Cold War for American studies, where he is an affiliate.

Melley’s goal in teaching is to help students become intelligent readers and critics of their culture. He has directed independent undergraduate research for five senior theses, five summer scholars and four undergraduate associates.

Melley is recipient of Miami’s Knox Award and a Celebration of Teaching Award from the Greater Cincinnati Consortium of Colleges and Universities.

He has been an alumni teaching fellow, was a Bye-Fellow at Selwyn College and regularly gives presentations and workshops on teaching, including the plenary address at the Lilly Conference on College Teaching at UCLA.

Melley has published short stories, books and articles on American fiction.

Tim Melley, associate professor of English