At a college where faculty, not graduate students, teach every course, exceptional teaching is part of the institutional fabric.  This year a new award was conferred on four outstanding Occidental faculty members who represent each of Occidental's academic disciplines: sciences, social sciences and humanities.  The Linda and Tod White Teaching Prize was awarded to Arthur G. Coons Distinguished Professor in the History of Ideas Roger Boesche; professor of kinesiology Stuart Rugg; associate professor of economics Giorgio Secondi; and assistant professor of English and comparative literature, Damian Stocking. 

Boesche, who some have said was Barack Obama '83's intellectual mentor at Occidental, is a well-loved senior member of the politics department.  On the faculty since 1977, he values the intimacy of a small college community and the research and teaching opportunities the College affords him.  “It's a small place and it seems like a place where you can make a difference - where you can leave a mark.”  Teaching classes on the history of European and American political thought that run from Jefferson to Nietzsche and even a seminar on tyrannies, Boesche is most interested in students widening their horizons.  “Watching students get excited about new ideas, watching the light bulbs go off - that's the exciting part of teaching,” he said.  “I don't care what they end up believing, I just want them to question their political ideas and assumptions.”  He was surprised and honored, as a senior faculty member, to receive the award.  Clearly he has made an impression on his students as one student wrote, “[He is] simply the most incredible human being I've met.  He makes understanding complicated political philosophies as easy as reading the Sunday funnies and is always there to help with honest and loving words of wisdom.”