Florence Amamoto
The Edgar M. Carlson Award for Distinguished Teaching is awarded each year to a member of the faculty who has demonstrated exceptional skill and effectiveness as a teacher. Though we are scholars and research is dear to our hearts and our minds, it is the personal intellectual relationship the professor has with students that we at Gustavus Adolphus College hold to be most cherished.
The Edgar M. Carlson award this year goes to a professor whom students and faculty deeply admire and respect – Dr. Florence Amamoto.
Dr. Amamoto teaches in the Department of English and came to Gustavus in the fall of 1990 after teaching several years at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1992. She received tenure at Gustavus in 1996. In her field, she is called an Americanist, and evangelizes our students in the classroom with the glories of Whitman, Morrison, Dickinson, and Hawthorne.
Dr. Amamoto receives abundant fond admiration from students due to the loving manner in which she teaches; compassionate and caring are words that appear often in her many nominations. However, it is her ability to combine her dedication to students with a passion for language and literature that earns Dr. Amamoto the deepest respect from students and colleagues. One student said, “Dr. Amamoto is the most outstanding teacher I have encountered at Gustavus…
She is an incredibly enthusiastic teacher and friend; she is complimentary, challenging, and competent.” Or this one: “Professor Amamoto’s passion for language is contagious and is unlikely to be thwarted.” Or simply, “She is brilliant.”
But Florence is also tough. In her own words in an admission video, Florence says, “I am not easy!” And the students that praise her also make it a point to mention that she is a tough grader! As one recommender put it, “In her non-intimidating but firm, quiet, and eloquent way, she’ll make sure her students give their best.” Additionally, Dr. Amamoto is frequently noted for her uncommonly fine skills at leading classroom discussion, for her incisive and thorough critiques of student writing, and for her near continual availability for consultation.
For her brilliance as a teacher, she was also selected as the 1998 winner of Gustavus’ other teaching award, the Swenson-Bunn Award, given solely by students through the Student Senate.
Florence’s grace and passion for life and learning are the same inside and outside the classroom. Students become Florence’s friends, friends in an exciting intellectual enterprise that takes place in the classroom and in the world. Says a first-year student, “I am thankful I was able to meet Dr. Amamoto so early in my college career!” And from a colleague: “Florence epitomizes what a faculty member should be – a wonderful teacher, colleague, mentor, friend, administrator, and human being.”
Dr. Amamoto’s dissertation from the University of Virginia studied American autobiographies of diverse Americans – Thoreau, Gertrude Stein, Henry Adams, Maxine Hong Kingston. But her passion in recent years has been the works of the great American novelist Willa Cather. She has made several important contributions at annual Cather conferences and is becoming a known Cather scholar.
Florence has served on many committees and is currently an assistant dean. But two contributions to the College I would like to mention. Florence has been an active member of the Women ‘s Studies program at Gustavus, serving as co-coordinator from l 992 to 1993. Florence has helped make the Women’s Studies program an important source of intellectual activity and critical reflection for our whole campus, a program of significance for both men and women, students and faculty.
Florence is also an active participant in chapel where she preaches every semester and where she sits almost every day, actively engaged in the dialogue that takes place in Christ Chapel. Her homilies often reflect the scriptural passage of the day from a Buddhist perspective. As she says. “I know from experience that being a Buddhist at a Lutheran college has not only taught me more about Lutheranism, but it has deepened my knowledge of and faith in my own Religion.” It is through diversity that identity can be clarified, and Florence’s different faith perspective has led her to participate as Gustavus’ representative at several conferences on the character and future of Lutheran higher education.
Dr. Florence Amamoto: distinguished teacher, hard worker, woman of faith, lover of words, caretaker/caregiver of students -all these qualities make you the deserving recipient of this year’s Edgar M. Carlson Award for Distinguished Teaching. Congratulations!
Presented by Mark Johnson
Associate Professor of Geology
1997 Recipient of the Edgar M. Carlson Award