Jeanne Herrick
Jeanne Weiland Herrick is one of two Northwestern University professors named Charles Deering McCormick University Distinguished Lecturers or Clinical Professors. Herrick, who holds a M.A. from Northern Illinois University, is a senior lecturer in the writing program in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
Herrick’s main goal is to create active learners. Her students will tell you she has surpassed that goal and her impact goes far beyond academic learning. As one student attested, “Teaching from the heart and life experiences, not just from books, is what separates Professor Herrick from the rest.”
A faculty member at Northwestern since 1999, Herrick has had a profound influence on countless students across the university. She teaches students at every level from freshmen to graduate students, in several schools, including McCormick, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Continuing Studies, where she received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006. Herrick is admired for her uniquely themed courses and development of new pedagogical techniques. For example, she has successfully incorporated team conferencing into the peer review process for each of her students and she has created courses that enable her students to discover the voices of marginalized communities in Chicago.
Herrick is passionate about teaching writing to underserved populations, such as first generation college students and non-native English speakers. As one colleague described, “Jeanne has, for many years, taught courses that require excursions into different Chicago neighborhoods and that introduce students to primary research methods.” Herrick is noted for sharing her innovative teaching techniques with others: she mentors new faculty and collaborates with peers from several disciplines in engineering and communication. She has been a key contributor and instructor in Design Thinking and Communication, an innovative interdisciplinary collaboration between Weinberg and McCormick.
Outside the classroom, Herrick is an academic advisor for Weinberg freshman and faculty master of the Women’s Residential College. She also serves as the University Faculty Senate representative for the Weinberg lecturer faculty.
Herrick and five other faculty members will be honored with 2014 Northwestern University Teaching Awards at a ceremony Tuesday, May 20, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Guild Lounge, Scott Hall, on the Evanston campus.
University Teaching Awards recognize individual faculty members who have consistently demonstrated outstanding performance in classroom teaching or who have developed significant innovations that have also influenced the methods and teaching effectiveness of other faculty.
The winners were nominated by undergraduate deans and selected by a diverse committee of Northwestern faculty, administration and staff.
