Professor Doug Maynard of the Department of Psychology at SUNY New Paltz received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching on September, 22, 2023. Check out the video below.
Text of President Wheeler’s Remarks about Professor Maynard
Professor Douglas Maynard is recognized by colleagues and students as an exceptional teacher, mentor and scholar in the Department of Psychology whose pedagogical strengths are evident both within and outside the classroom. Letters of support describe his courses as rigorous, carefully planned and delivered with clarity and creativity. He is exceptionally skilled at motivating his students, sparking their interest, and keeping them engaged.
Three “pillars of student motivation” inform Maynard’s teaching: He strives to boost students’ confidence and sense of competence; support their autonomy and sense of belonging in academia; and assure them of the value of their efforts. His use of game-like activities in the classroom not only makes his classes more enjoyable but infuses them with his own scholarship, much of which explores gameplay and its impact on well-being.
Deeply committed to his role as a teacher-scholar, Maynard regularly involves his students in research, treating them as collaborators with vital roles to play in planning a study, developing materials to run it and collecting data to support it. As a mentor, Maynard is accessible, supportive and extraordinarily generous with his time. Several of his mentees have co-authored peer-reviewed articles or co-presented at major conferences, and a number have gone on to pursue graduate study and careers directly related to what they learned in his classroom and lab.
