Jim Crowfoot gave his “last lecture” recently after receiving the 18th Annual Golden Apple Award, a student-bestowed honor recognizing great teaching.
But Crowfoot, professor emeritus of natural resources and urban and regional planning at the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE), got the last laugh: he sent everyone home with homework.
True to his pedagogical philosophy that places great value on learner participation, Crowfoot’s last lecture involved audience involvement and a 14-page handout with citations and future reading lists. The “last lecture” ceremony is a mainstay of the annual award, which is one of the highest teaching honors at the University … and the only one awarded exclusively by students.
Students voted to give Crowfoot this year’s award based on letters of support from current and former students he mentored during nearly 25 years of University service. Crowfoot taught for 10 years at SNRE and led it as dean for eight more years. Semi-retired today, he still teaches twice a year through the Michigan Community Scholars Program and the undergraduate-based Program in the Environment.
During his deanship Crowfoot guided SNRE through perilous budget cuts and helped re-establish its value and place at the University. “That School of Natural Resources and Environment means everything to me,” said Crowfoot, who also holds the title of emeritus dean.
His lecture centered on two themes: the need to teach the concept of sustainability more broadly to all U-M students — whether defined in terms of spirituality or natural resources — and embracing a community approach to learning, which is a byproduct of his professional and well-regarded work in conflict resolution.
“It’s not only the substance that’s important. It’s the process,” Crowfoot said about his philosophy to teaching. “Students aren’t memory machines on a stick. That ability to learn is so incredibly important for our future.”
He is the first emeritus professor to receive the award. “That proves that great teachers and their legacies never leave the University,” said Andrew Bronstein, co-chair of Students Honoring Outstanding University Teaching, the group that conducts the voting and bestows the award.
Rosina Bierbaum, professor and current SNRE dean, said the award was well-deserved.
“He is a man of incredible integrity who has served as a mentor, professor and scholar of sustainability and environmental justice for more than three decades and is still teaching undergraduate interdisciplinary seminars,” Bierbaum said. “Jim is a role model to us all.”
Introducing Crowfoot was Mark Chesler, an emeritus professor of sociology and 40-year friend. “Jim has been a steadfast, non-violent warrior for social justice,” Chesler said.
