Chancellor recognizes four exemplary teachers
by Brian Shultz, reporter

    Four outstanding professors, representing each campus, received the Chancellor’s Award for Exemplary Teaching at graduation last month.

    Chris Goebel, Dr. Cordell Parker, Patricia McCormick and Dr. Laura Wood are this year’s recipients. Together, the four have given 93 years of service to the district.

    The Chancellor’s Award is given annually to one teacher from each campus for career accomplishments, a lifetime of dedication and consummate devotion to their students.

    Recipients received an engraved plaque and a $2,500 check.

Goebel, the SE department head of music, art and dance, began teaching film in ’68 at Nolan High School.

    “I was radical in my beliefs of what art should be, and the administration at Nolan was very generous in allowing me to explore that,” he said.

    Goebel describes his early exploration in teaching as a detective process to open the students’ minds to knowledge and expose them to new things.

    “I love the ambiguity in art and seeing how each student discovers his or her own potential,” he said.

    He has been teaching at TCC for 31 years.

    Parker, chairperson of communication arts on NE Campus, believes “there is no profession that is more fulfilling than being an integral part in a person’s education.”

    He started teaching speech at Burkburnett High School in ’62 and joined the TCC faculty 33 years ago.

    “Speech is one discipline that offers a constant variety of content. Technology and students are always changing and presenting new challenges,” he said.

    The variety and challenge of teaching inspired Parker to make it a career and develop a commitment to fostering the close relationship between his expectations and a student’s actual performance.

    McCormick, fine arts chair on South Campus, graduated college desperate to pay off student loans and decided to take a “temporary” teaching job at Sidney Lanier High School.

    It was only a matter of time before she realized that teaching would be a lifelong pursuit.

    She began working for TCC in ’73, directing a series of operas and shortly afterwards became a permanent staff member teaching within the drama department.

    “I believe there is no finer attribute to the human spirit than participating in the fine arts. It helps us to understand the best and the worst in us,” she said.

    McCormick has been part of over 200 plays while working at TCC. Because of her dedication to performance art, in April she was selected to go to the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to direct the one act play, Because I Was Sitting Here.

    Wood, the fourth recipient, is featured in a story on page 1.