Teaching Naked by SMU Meadows Dean José Antonio Bowen Receives National Award

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) announced today that José Antonio Bowen, dean of SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts, is the winner of the national 2014 Frederic W. Ness Book Award for Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning, published in 2012 by Jossey-Bass. The Ness award is given to a book that best illuminates the goals and practices of a contemporary liberal education, and is being formally presented to Dr. Bowen at AAC&U’s annual meeting this week in Washington, D.C.

In Teaching Naked, Bowen explores how technology can be most powerfully used outside the classroom rather than as a substitute for traditional classroom learning. Among other things, Bowen discusses particular approaches to using technology to improve learning outcomes and ensure that students arrive to class more prepared for meaningful interaction with faculty.

This year’s Ness award winner was selected by a committee of higher education leaders including Dianne Harrison (chair), President, California State University-Northridge; Jim Collins, Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and Environment, Arizona State University; and Marc Roy, Provost, Goucher College.

“José Bowen’s work is both compelling and useful,” said Dianne Harrison, “and it also is very cognizant of the ideals and values of liberal education.”

The Ness Book Award was established by AAC&U in 1979 to honor AAC&U’s president emeritus, Frederic W. Ness. Recent award winners include Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education: Liberal Learning for the Profession by Dr. Anne Colby, Thomas Ehrlich, Dr. William Sullivan, and Dr. Jonathan R. Dolle; Why Choose the Liberal Arts? by Mark W. Roche; Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education by Peter Sacks; Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More by Derek Bok; Saving Higher Education in the Age of Money by James Engell and Anthony Dangerfield; Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi; Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past by Sam Wineburg; and Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education by Martha Nussbaum.

Visit José Bowen’s website TeachingNaked.com to learn more about his ongoing work.

About AAC&U

AAC&U is the leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. Its members are committed to extending the advantages of a liberal education to all students, regardless of academic specialization or intended career. Founded in 1915, AAC&U now comprises more than 1,300 member institutions—including accredited public and private colleges, community colleges, research universities, and comprehensive universities of every type and size.

AAC&U functions as a catalyst and facilitator, forging links among presidents, administrators, and faculty members who are engaged in institutional and curricular planning. Its mission is to reinforce the collective commitment to liberal education and inclusive excellence at both the national and local levels, and to help individual institutions keep the quality of student learning at the core of their work as they evolve to meet new economic and social challenges.

Information about AAC&U membership, programs, and publications can be found at www.aacu.org.