Sylvia E. Bowman award, Mary E. Fell

"I try to give my students the courage to begin the journey of learning, the skills they will need to find their way and the excitement of knowledge gained or insight achieved. There is not a common destination, I tell them. You often won’t even know where you are going until you get there. But what you find will be yours forever."

—Mary Fell

Mary Fell characterizes teaching and learning in the same terms—an odyssey that leads one into unexpected but fascinating territory.

Fell discovered her love for teaching as a graduate student, teaching in a summer program to teenagers from Boston’s inner city. At IU East, she has maintained her commitment to helping underprepared students succeed. But she inspires students at every skill level.

Fell helps her students remove one of the roadblocks any aspiring writer must get past: she creates an environment in which they can develop confidence in their own efforts and learn to work together. One of her assets as a teacher is the faith she has in her students’ abilities. As her IU East colleague Joan Esterline Lafuze puts it, Fell virtually “breathes” encouragement.

During nearly 20 years at IU East, Fell has mentored junior faculty, played a crucial role in revising and diversifying curricula and helped to build a dynamic creative writing program. Colleagues note that her door is always open and that she has worked hard to introduce students to often-neglected bodies of literature.