Alumni Award Recipients

Anita Obermeier
Faculty Teaching Award, 2010

Most of us would be curious about Anita Obermeier's class, "Uppity Medieval Women." We've all known – or perhaps even been called – uppity women. So, maybe times haven't changed that much.

Anita's students would agree with that. One of them wrote: "Being in class with you has helped me to see … that the things people were concerned with hundreds of years ago are still things we are concerned with today."

An associate professor of English, Anita teaches medieval literature as well as other subjects in the Medieval Studies Program. Her aim is to help students see the roots of modern culture that began in the Middle Ages.

She begins her Arthurian Legends class with TV clips talking about online voter registration as the Holy Grail.

Anita expects active participation and exacting scholarship from her students. But she also wants them to feel the vibrancy of medieval life and studies. So, she had one group write a puppet show, sew costumes, and construct their own stage. Another group put on a knighting ceremony and baked cookies in the shapes of heraldic shields.

A student wrote: "Most of us view professors as untouchable and unapproachable, as members of a sort of academic elite that hovers above the student population. Professor Obermeier strongly debunks this myth."

"Teaching doesn't happen in the classroom alone," Anita says. That's why she is the faculty advisor to the Medieval Studies Student Association.

Anita's Arthurian class culminates in an "Arthurian Round Table Dinner, featuring authentic medieval food, made from the cookbook of Richard II. Not that our meal tonight hasn't been tasty, but how do pumpkin shrimp soup, brie tarts, faux venison stew and saffron rice, asparagus mushroom leek ragout, and cherry bread pudding sound?

The dinner is an opportunity for students to interact with their teacher and each other. Why?

"Most university retention studies show that students who feel they belong to a community in college are less likely to drop out, " Anita says. "I am trying to foster beneficial student community and retention at UNM."

In this day and age, the art of teaching has become even more important. Students can glean information from websites. They can share ideas over the internet. Face to face, spontaneous interaction is almost superfluous. Walk into many classrooms before class begins and students are often texting, not interacting at all with their classmates.

When Anita enters her classroom, 30 to 35 students are jabbering away. And the comfort level with one another continues in class discussions.

"Never did I feel like you were trying to talk 'at us' but that you were much more concerned with talking with us and facilitating conversations that would benefit the whole class," says a student.

Tonight, it gives us great pleasure to honor a teacher-scholar whose own joy in teaching transcends into her students' joy in learning. It's how education should be.

Thank you, and congratulations, Anita.