Professor Amanda White receives Governor’s award
By: Sam Wise
-Staff Writer-
Sociology professor Amanda White has recently been announced as a winner of the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. She will receive her award in the spring during a luncheon where she and other winners will have the opportunity to meet the Governor.
The Governor’s Award is given to one faculty member from every university and college in Missouri to recognize outstanding teaching.
White, who attended Illinois State as a law student, said her passion for sociology and teaching earned her the award even though she was not always on this path.
White changed her major to sociology with an emphasis on Family and Gender to feed her passion for the family.
“I thought I was going to be a lawyer for low-income families,” White said. “I took an Intro to Sociology and totally fell in love with the discipline.”
When White decided to go for her master’s degree, she was teaching courses at Illinois State and a local community college in Peoria.
“I was really nervous, wasn’t sure if I would love it… I had pretty much only worked on school work until then…I loved it so I went on to get my Ph.D.,” White said.
White moved to Arizona for her Ph. D. in Family Studies, focusing more on Sociology with a concentration in Public Policy, and a minor in Spanish.
“When you’re doing your Ph.D., you’re doing a lot of research…so I always found myself going more towards the teaching,” White said.
White began teaching full time at STLCC-Meramec in 2006 and teaches Intro to Sociology and Women and Gender. She said she has not lost any passion for her discipline.
“I know it sounds really cheesy, but I feel very fortunate to say that I absolutely love what I do,” White said.
White described Intro to Sociology as her favorite class to instruct.
“It is such a broad course, students can come in and be like, ‘I don’t know about intro to Sociology, or I don’t know what it is, or I took psych and I liked that,.’ You know there’s going to be something in that class that is going to get to every student…there is something for every student,” White said.
White believes the reason she received this award could be because her teaching philosophy has evolved during her time at Meramec.
“There is always room to be able to improve yourself, and there is always time to be able to do it,” White said. “I really do try and get the students involved.”
Darlaine Gardetto, the department chair for the Behavioral Sciences department, described White as a special person with serious discipline.
“It is a special award for the person who receives it, but also a feather in the cap for the department, and the discipline,” Gardetto said.
Gardetto has been the department chair since White joined Meramec, and said she feels that winning this award is special because White is still young.
White said her favorite hobby has become traveling the world. She has visited Africa, most of Western Europe and Central America, where she is able to put her minor in Spanish to good use.
“I really like Central America, that’s probably my favorite area to go, it is beautiful and the people are absolutely wonderful,” White said.
White has turned her travels into an important tool in the classroom as well.
“Students need to be able to connect what is happening in the classroom to things that are happening outside of the classroom. To see these as two different experiences, but they should be connected,” White said.
White said her hope is to teach until she “drops.”
“I hope to teach until I drop, and hopefully I don’t drop in the classroom…I could not imagine doing anything else,” White said with a smile.
