杰里米·波普荣获托马斯·杰斐逊教学奖
Among History Professor Jeremy Pope’s shelves, crowded with books on ancient Africa, sits a box that goes a long way toward demonstrating why he is being awarded the 托马斯·杰斐逊教学奖.
Pope will be presented the award at W&M’s 宪章的一天 ceremony at 4 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 5 in 威廉玛丽庄园. The award is given annually to a younger faculty member who has demonstrated – through concern as a teacher, character and influence – the inspiration and stimulation of learning to the betterment of the individual and society.
盒子里放着许多陶瓷碎片，当它们组合在一起时，就复制了一件重要的埃及文物。 Pope, an expert in African 历史 predating the trans-Atlantic slave trade, knows the researcher who, in real life, found the authentic artifact broken and uncategorized at University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and, piecing it together, realized its significance.
Pope wanted to recreate the experience for students, so he commissioned W&M student Lorraine Archibald ’13 to fabricate the broken pieces from clay. (How she did it is as creative as Pope’s idea; 她做了一个整个工艺品的复制品，并在上面系上了绳子，这样它在发射后就能干净地折断了)。
在课堂上，Pope拿出了这个盒子，它的标签和芝加哥的那个盒子一样，他把它放在一张长肉纸上，放在一张宽桌子的中间，让学生们自己算出来。 他们小心翼翼地打开盒子，开始用粘土碎片轻轻地重建这个物体。 波普提供了一份背景资料，帮助我们根据地点、时间、用途和意义来识别这件文物。
“Whenever I teach a course, I try to imagine being an undergraduate student in that course,” said Pope, some of whose courses are cross-listed with 非洲研究 and 美国研究. “That’s a difficult thing for a researcher who spends 每一个 day in this material, but I think it’s one of the main skills of teaching.”
辛迪Hahamovitch, Class of ’38 Professor and 历史 chair, reviewed at random Pope’s teaching evaluations from six classes. “He received median scores of five in 每一个 category,” she wrote in her letter of support for his award. “I have never seen anything like it in my 23 years at the College.”
这个人造工艺品只是波普向学生展示的谜题类型中的一个例子。 在另一个例子中，他要求学生们利用最初的研究人员可以获得的信息，如海拔、墓葬风格和与每次埋葬相关的人工制品，来确定一个古老努比亚墓地的墓葬的年代。
“Using the data at hand and prior knowledge from the course, we were able to chronologically order the tombs and provide a convincing argument for our hypotheses,” said Sophia Farrulla ’13, in her letter of recommendation, adding that the exercise resulted “in the best discussions I have experienced in any class … Professor Pope pushed us to become better students – better thinkers.”
波普还注重戏剧性效果，他对学生隐瞒信息，而选择大揭秘。 In lectures, he’ll introduce a twist, eliciting gasps from students – or, one time, a student who cursed aloud. “That’s genuine surprise, right? When you accidentally curse out of shock,” Pope said.
Because students are often completely unfamiliar with African 历史, he said they’re quickly intrigued with the material as he presents it. 波普本人也曾有过类似的兴趣。 Native to Poquoson, as a teenager he would catch radio broadcasts out of Hampton University referencing a rich African 历史 that wasn’t taught in his high school. 他知道，上大学后，他想学得更多。
But most of his students don’t walk into W&M knowing they want to study ancient Africa. Stephen Bennett ’14, who also wrote a letter of recommendation for Pope’s award, said he had no particular interest in Africa when he enrolled in “African History to 1800” his first semester. He was so impressed with the first class session, he immediately signed on to Pope’s freshman seminar, “Nubia in American Thought.” 当波普开设新课程时，班尼特就报名参加了每一门课程，然后继续学习其他学科的非洲相关课程，并在考古实地学校度过了一个夏天。
“[Pope] would connect the 历史 dating back thousands of years to its modern implications and how 历史 reverberates into the modern era,” Bennett wrote. “Every day I walked out with my mind blown …”
But if Pope’s had a singular victory with a student, he said it would be the career trajectory of Farrulla, who developed an interest in Nubia in another course and set her heart on a doctoral degree in Nubian archaeology at the end of her sophomore year. 听说波普是该地区的专家，她向他要了一份推荐读物清单。 相反，他们计划了她接下来两年的学习，以提高她被研究生院录取的机会。
波普说，这个领域的博士课程很少，而且竞争非常激烈，有些每年只招收一两个学生。 Graduate students are cultivated from the undergraduate ranks in a pipeline, taking specialized courses not offered at W&M – multiple years of Egyptian language and art, for example.
在最后一年半的时间里，法鲁拉跟着波普上了六门课，写了一篇荣誉论文，并在当地的一个考古遗址度过了一个夏天。
“It was a very tenuous plan,” he said. “I wasn’t that confident it would work. She wasn’t that confident it would work. But she assured me this was really something she wanted to do.”
如今，她是加州大学圣巴巴拉分校（University of California, Santa Barbara）的一名博士生，她已经以考古学家的身份在苏丹努比亚地区进行了挖掘工作。 She said she’s aspiring to become “as effective and inspirational a mentor … as [Pope] was to me.”
Because Pope’s area of expertise is obscure, even among historians, he said his first reaction to winning the 托马斯·杰斐逊教学奖 was “to be proud of the material I study, in the way you’re proud of one of your parents if their accomplishments are acknowledged. 我研究的材料比很多人想象的要有趣得多，也不那么神秘。
“It’s hard for me to think of another subject that is as much marginalized in the United States, at least another historical subject. It’s especially relevant because it has been important to people of African descent in this country. It’s rarely been valued by people in positions of power, but it’s been important to a lot of people in their identity formation in this country.”
在课堂之外，Pope作为一名学者和为校园社区服务仍然很活跃。 他于2010年加入W&M，刚刚在约翰霍普金斯大学（Johns Hopkins University）获得埃及学博士学位，并在那里完成了非洲历史博士学位的综合考试。 He has published eight articles and in 2014 published the book 塔哈尔卡统治下的双重王国：公元前690-664年库什和埃及历史研究.
Hahamovitch lauded his “inordinate amount of service” at W&M. 他曾担任文理学院秘书、荣誉与跨学科研究委员会委员、荣誉学位咨询委员会委员和文理研究生奖委员会委员。
Within the 历史 department, he is faculty advisor to the 历史 honors society and the undergraduate journal 詹姆斯·布莱尔历史评论 and has served on a number of department committees. 他目前是22个历史专业的指导老师。 “This is not a usual service load for a junior faculty member,” Hahamovitch said.