College of Arts and Sciences'
TSI Longmire Prize Awarded to Grady Wray

Grady Wray, assistant professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, is the 2006 recipient of the Longmire Prize, presented at the 2006 Teaching Scholars Initiative Colloquium.

The Longmire Prize is named for the late William and Jane Longmire, who created a fund through their estates to improve teaching at OU.  Recipients are given a monetary award and a personal plaque, and their name will be inscribed on a permanent plaque located in Ellison Hall. 

Longmire’s gift is used by the college to stimulate and reward excellence in teaching by faculty.  The prize is given annually to a faculty member who, in addition to exhibiting exemplary dedication to students and teaching, also is active in the scholarship of teaching and actively shares this knowledge with others.

Wray has been an instructor at OU for six years, where he has touched the lives of many students and instructors. Students at OU have changed their majors and career paths after taking his classes. In addition to teaching language classes, he also is responsible for teaching the required class for all incoming teaching assistants in his department, as well as a graduate seminar on the pedagogy of teaching foreign languages.  Wray also serves as a supervisor of teaching assistants once they begin to teach.  Among the many graduate students who praise his mentoring of teaching assistants, one gives him the credit for her having won the college’s Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award in 2005.

His interest in teaching about teaching is not limited to the college level.  From his first day on campus, he has served as the departmental liaison to the College of Education.  This position allows him to work closely with beginning Spanish teachers in the Oklahoma public school system as they learn how to teach.  In his role of university supervisor, he makes several classroom visits each semester to observe and advise beginning teachers, in addition to working closely with their supervising teachers and school administrators.

The announcement of the prize came as a surprise to Wray, who was assured "the check is in the mail" by Dean Bell.

In addition to the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Atmospheric and Geographical Sciences and the College of Engineering each recognized one of their outstanding faculty members with a TSI award. Participants in the colloquium include the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Atmospheric and Geographical Sciences, the College of Engineering and the Weitzenhoffer College of Fine Arts.

For more information on the Teaching Scholars Initiative, visit their Web site.