The University of Memphis honored four faculty members with its 2012 Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching Award. Dr. Sara Bridges, Dr. Tammy Jones, Dr. Thomas Meservy and Dr. Peter Wright received their awards during the University’s annual Faculty Convocation April 20.

Four faculty members were honored with U of M Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching awards: (from left) Dr. Sara Bridges, Dr. Thomas Meservy, Dr. Tammy Jones and Dr. Peter Wright (not pictured). (Photo by Susan Prater)

Bridges, an associate professor in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Research, is the former president of the Society for Humanistic Psychology, co-editor of the five-volume series Studies in Meaning, and a licensed counseling psychologist. She has an extensive list of publications in constructivist psychology, sex and marital therapy, and multicultural psychology, as well as a distinguished record of awards for academic and community service. Bridges teaches courses in Family and Couple Therapy, Human Sexuality, Advanced Theories of Psychotherapy and several psychotherapy skills-based courses. Her students appreciate her enormous drive and initiative, as well as her wonderful sense of humor. She is a riveting speaker and storyteller, and uses anecdotes to make the content of her courses personable and relatable. One student notes, “Dr. Bridges takes course material and turns it into a dialogue, a conversation. She brings you right alongside her, making even abstract material relevant to your life.”

Jones teaches a variety of undergraduate courses in the Department of English and works with students from several different programs. She teaches both combination as well as Honors sections, participates in the Fresh Connections Learning Communities and serves as a mentor for new teaching assistants in the First-Year Writing Program. Jones is the co-author of “Unlocking the Visual Puzzle: Understanding Textbook Design,” which appeared as part of the Teaching of English as a Second Language Classroom Practice Series. She is interested in intercultural communication as a result of nearly a decade of teaching in Belize. Students describe Jones as an enthusiastic, dedicated teacher who gives 100 percent to every class she teaches. According to one student, “Ms. Jones is by far one of the best teachers that I’ve encountered while at the University of Memphis.” Colleagues in English describe her as one of their “go to” teachers in the department who is able to teach “almost any class in our rotation at any time to any student.”

Meservy joined the Department of Management Information Systems as an assistant professor in 2007. He teaches undergraduate and graduate students how to create and use technology to get the right information to the right person at the right time. One student describes him as “passionate, nerdy, and a good professor who loves to teach.” His research interests are centered on the use of technology to augment human capabilities to solve complex problems such as automatically detecting deception based on human nonverbal behavior, enabling extremely large groups to collaborate effectively. Meservy has published in several of the top technical academic journals and conferences. He is a software developer by training and holds a number of professional technical certifications.

Wright is the Endowed Chair of Excellence in Free Enterprise Management in the Fogelman College of Business & Economics. He has been a professor of management at the U of M for 24 years. Wright has published numerous academic journal articles and two textbooks during his career, and teaches the strategic management course in the Management Department. He is regarded as a highly student-oriented professor with a teaching style that encourages even the shyest students to participate in group classroom discussions. One student said, “Even as seniors, we were shy to speak up ­– afraid to be wrong, afraid to look silly, but Dr. Wright was so positive and encouraging that we became more comfortable speaking in class.” Another student describes Wright’s teaching style as one in which creativity is encouraged, and students are able to use their imagination to solve problems in new ways.