Gary Sue Goodman, lecturer in the UC Davis University Writing Program, is the recipient of the 2009 James H. Meyer Distinguished Achievement Award presented by the Academic Federation.

The annual award, which includes a $1,000 stipend, is presented to members of the UC Davis Academic Federation in recognition of distinguished career-long contributions to the mission of the university and a commitment to the campus community. The federation comprises some 1,200 people including lecturers, researchers, Cooperative Extension specialists, academic administrators and academic coordinators.

Goodman earned her bachelor's degree in psychology with a minor in English from Wellesley College, her master's from New Mexico State University and her doctorate in modern thought and literature from Stanford.

She came to UC Davis as a lecturer 23 years ago, first in the Composition Program and the Campus Writing Center and then the University Writing Program, teaching advanced writing in the disciplines and professions.

The University Writing Program teaches expository, essay and research writing, as well as writing in the disciplines and in the professions.

"The students love it, because the courses are very practical," she said, for biologists and engineers, lawyers and journalists, to name a few.

The University Writing Program also teaches graduate student writing, trains graduate students to teach writing and consults with faculty all over campus on how to better incorporate writing into the curriculum.

Her colleagues credit Goodman for being instrumental as a lecturer and an administrator in bringing the writing program to where it is today: respected around the nation. In its latest rankings, U.S. News and World Report ranks UC Davis as one of the 22 best colleges nationwide for teaching writing across disciplines.

Goodman became director of the Composition Program in 2000. She went on to serve as associate director of the newly established University Writing Program, then as assistant director for Writing Across the Curriculum. Among the UWP’s more recent accomplishments: the establishment of a writing minor.

Professor Chris Thaiss, director of the University Writing Program, heartily endorsed Goodman’s nomination for the Meyer award.

"For more than 15 years she has been building connections between the writing program and disciplinary faculty across campus, helping them develop techniques that not only allow them to make student writing an integral part of their teaching, but also help writers improve through constructive feedback, efficiently given," Thaiss wrote.

Goodman "has contributed immensely to the intellectual and public life of this campus," not only with the University Writing Program, but with the Campus Community Book Project and by advancing conditions for underrepresented constituencies at UC Davis, said Raquel Scherr Salgado, a lecturer in the writing program.

Goodman has been active in the book project since it began in 2002. She was director of the Composition Program at the time, and recalled saying, “If there’s going to be a campuswide reading project, we need to be involved in it.”

She incorporates the selected books into her writing classes, and served as the project’s interim coordinator for two years, 2006 and 2007.

For Goodman, the book project is like the University Writing Program and its work all across campus. “I enjoy the collaborative process,” she said, “having a vision and the optimism to believe it could actually happen and then seeing it come true.”