August 02, 2005

"Canadian Idol": The academic version

Always good to know what some former professors of mine are up to. From today's UW Daily Bulletin:

Michael Higgins - media personality, raconteur, scholar of religion and literature, and incidentally president of St. Jerome's University - has been selected one of "Ontario's 30 best lecturers" by the TV Ontario program "Big Ideas."

He was nominated by former students, a news release says, for "the clarity, passion and assurance of his lectures in religious studies."

From the 359 nominations received, and on the strength of videotaped submissions solicited by the program's producers, Higgins (right) was selected to be on the shortlist of 30 professors who will vie for the provincial title. A distinguished panel of judges - columnist Robert Fulford, playwright Andrew Moodie and Literary Review of Canada editor Bronwyn Drainie - will narrow down the list by selecting 10 finalists.

[Full Story]

I studied under Prof. Higgins for the second half of the required English literature survey course. His treatment of the Romantics went a long way toward reforming my very negative opinion of poetry. (My prof. for the first half of that course heard that I didn't like poetry, and quipped that I really had no business in an English program.) Good luck.

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