The Clayton State University College of Arts and Sciences recently announced its second annual Gene Hatfield Scholar and Teacher of the Year Award winners. Dr. Todd Janke, an associate professor of Philosophy, was honored as Teacher of the Year. Dr. Joe Johnson, an associate professor of Foreign Languages, was awarded the Scholar of the Year.
Selected separately by faculty committee, each recipient received a plaque and a check for $500. The awards are funded by Dr. Gene Hatfield, retired chair of the Department of Social Sciences at Clayton State.
Janke received his B.A. from St. Olaf College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Georgetown University. He also received special recognition this past spring as the winner of the 2010 Alice J. Smith Faculty Award.
In addition to teaching Philosophy, Janke also teaches Critical Thinking (a course focusing on skills essential to effective critical thinking in both academic and general use) and has also taught the University Foundations course that helps new students make a successful transition to Clayton State University.
Janke has said the most rewarding part of his time at Clayton State is making philosophy come alive for students, and that he enjoys watching students transform each semester and really learning how to grapple with really dense text.
Johnson is currently serving as interim chair for the Department of Humanities. He received his B.A. from The Citadel, M.A. from the University of South Carolina, and Ph.D. from the University of Florida.
Johnson teaches both French and Spanish courses. He is a frequent translator of French-language comic books and graphic novels for publication in the United States and Canada. He is currently working on the translation of The Three Musketeers for the Classics Illustrated series. He has also edited a classroom edition of the 18th Century French novel Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost, with a similar edition of Denis Diderot’s La Religieuse currently on press.