Martin Covington named Presidential Chair

25 April 2001 | The Committee on Teaching has named Professor of Psychology Martin Covington as Presidential Chair in Undergraduate Education. He was honored at the April 25 Teaching Award Ceremony.

A three-year appointment, the Presidential Chair is designed to encourage the development of new courses or to enhance the quality of existing undergraduate courses.

During his tenure as Presidential Chair, Covington will develop materials and offer workshops, seminars and individual consultations to help faculty encourage and enhance intrinsic motivation in their students.

Based on extensive research on Berkeley students, Covington has developed a number of instructional strategies designed to motivate students to pursue learning for its own intrinsic satisfactions rather than out of grade-focused fear.

He has also created a series of evaluation instruments to assess the motivational climate in classrooms, and how that climate changes as teaching changes.

Covington received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1976, and was named College Teacher of the Year by the Phi Beta Kappa Society, California Division, in 1998.

See http://uga.berkeley.edu/sled/awards.html for information on the Presidential Chair in Undergraduate Education.