Professor Benjamin S. Grossberg has been selected as the University of Hartford’s Distinguished Teaching Humanist for 2024-26.
Grossberg’s books of poetry include My Husband Would (University of Tampa, 2020), winner of the 2021 Connecticut Book Award, and Sweet Core Orchard (University of Tampa, 2009), winner of a Lambda Literary Award. He also wrote the novel, The Spring Before Obergefell (University of Nebraska Press, 2024), winner of the 2023 AWP Award Series James Alan McPherson Prize. He has been at the University of Hartford since 2008 and is director of the creative writing program in the Department of English and Modern Languages.
According to A&S Interim Dean Mark Blackwell, “The Selection Committee was excited by Ben's application; they were impressed in equal measure by his previous accomplishments as teacher, creative writer, and scholar and by the plans he sketched for his term as Distinguished Teaching Humanist. Ben plans to spend his term introducing workshop pedagogy to a broad University of Hartford audience. This approach to classroom teaching certainly works for courses in writing and in content production that do not focus solely on creative writing, but it may also apply to disciplines and course types not usually associated with the workshop model. The committee was especially interested in the ways in which the workshop environment fosters inclusive pedagogy.”
The Distinguished Teaching Humanist (DTH) enlivens teaching and improves pedagogy in the humanities and has considerable discretion and opportunity to innovate in the pursuit of this mission. The DTH conducts workshops on pedagogical issues of general concern for University of Hartford faculty and consults with individual faculty members and observes their classes upon their request. In addition, the DTH provides leadership for the content and administration of all aspects of the Distinguished Visiting Professor program and partners with the Distinguished Visiting Professor to create the intellectual substance of the annual summer workshop.