Erik Woody, recipient of the Distinguished Teacher Award, 2006

Psychology

Professor Erik Woody of the Department of Psychology has made stellar teaching contributions across multiple domains. He is widely known for making comprehensible the statistical methods that normally strike fear into the hearts of undergraduate students and graduate students alike. He uses innovation and humour to make the very complex readily understandable. His outstanding teaching has shaped not just the precision of his students' thinking but often the very career paths that they choose. The beneficiaries of his teaching include not just undergraduate and graduate students, but also fellow faculty members. He is an exceptional mentor of his junior colleagues. When teaching students how to conduct therapy sessions, his warmth and insight benefit not only his students, but also the patients who will ultimately be treated by these students. Thus, his sphere of influence is large indeed. Dr. Woody teaches with a rare combination of unbridled enthusiasm and compassionate caring for those under his tutelage. After twenty-five years of teaching Dr. Woody has, in the words of Robertson Davies, “chalk dust in his veins,” and for that, his students are extremely grateful, and his colleagues in psychology are extremely proud.