Pitt English Faculty Win Bellet Teaching Awards

PITTSBURGH—Professor H. David Brumble and visiting lecturer Sharon McDermott, both in the University of Pittsburgh Department of English, have been named winners of the 2005 Tina and David Bellet Arts and Sciences Teaching Excellence Award.

Established in 1998 with a $200,000 donation from the Bellet family, the annual award recognizes outstanding and innovative teaching in undergraduate studies in the School of Arts and Sciences. An additional $100,000 has been donated to the University this year through the Bellet family. Award recipients will each receive a one-time cash prize of $2,000 and a grant of $3,000 in support of his or her teaching.

A full professor since 1988, Brumble teaches the classes Bible as Literature, Warrior Culture Narratives, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Journal/Travel Writing. His main teaching interests are late-Medieval and Renaissance literature.

Brumble also has taught internationally in London, Brazil, Bolivia, and Ghana, and served as Semester at Sea dean for the 1989 and 1992 voyages. He has taken students to 28 countries, mostly in the developing world. In addition, he received the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1987.

The author of five books, Brumble has two more forthcoming, Illustrations of Medieval and Renaissance Culture and The Bible in Cross-Cultural Perspective, both to be published in 2005 and 2006, respectively, by Glen Allen: College Publishing.

McDermott has been a visiting lecturer in Pitt's English department since 2000. She teaches Introduction to Poetry Writing, Poetry Workshop, and General Writing. In addition, McDermott tutors in Pitt's Writing Center.

Among her honors are a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Award for her poetry, The Pittsburgh Foundation Artist Award, and The Esther Bovard Medallion for Excellence in Creative Writing.

McDermott's poems have been widely published in literary magazines. Her poem "Burning the Dog" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2004. She is the author of the chapbook Voluptuous (Ultima Obscura Press, 2001), and McDermott's latest work, Alley Scatting, a chapbook, will be published by Parallel Press in September.

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