Pick almost any subject on American culture, and chances are that Professor Jay Mechling has written about it, been quoted about it in the media — or taught it to undergraduates during the past 35 years at UC Davis.

For his nationally renowned scholastic breadth and teaching depth, American studies scholar Mechling has been awarded the 2006 UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement.

The $30,000 prize, funded by the UC Davis Foundation through gifts from the Davis Chancellor's Club Fellows, is believed to be the largest prize of its kind in the United States. Created in 1988, the prize is awarded annually based on the recommendations of faculty members, students and research peers.

'Extraordinary scholarship'

Michael Chapman, chair of the UC Davis Foundation board of trustees, congratulated Mechling and expressed pride at helping the campus recognize one of its best.

"As dedicated supporters of higher education, we take great pride in recognizing Professor Mechling's extraordinary scholarship and gifted teaching," Chapman said. "This award is a small tangible expression of our gratitude to those who excel in their mission of teaching."

UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef praised Mechling's national standing as both a scholar and a teacher.

"In 1998, the same year that he was selected by his national peers to be a Fellow in the American Folklore Society, he received the highest teaching prize the American Studies Association gives," Vanderhoef said. "Those honors placed him in the top echelon not just for this campus but in the nation."

Chapman and Vanderhoef helped announce Mechling's award on campus Monday, at a surprise presentation during his class on Animals in American Culture. While the students were treated to cake, the campus will formally present Mechling with the award on May 11 at a gala dinner at Freeborn Hall.

Childhood culture

Mechling arrived at UC Davis in 1971, accompanied by a wife, a daughter and a ponytail. He had just earned master's and doctoral degrees in American studies from the University of Pennsylvania — his dissertation was on the history of American childhood. He was eager to join UC Davis' 3-year-old American studies program and start teaching undergraduates.

Today the ponytail is long gone. But Mechling's initial loves — teaching undergraduates as well as studying the culture of childhood, American history and literature — have stretched and multiplied until he is now one of the nation's most versatile and respected teachers and scholars on the breadth of Americana.

Mechling has published more than 100 articles, many co-written with his wife, Elizabeth Mechling, a communications professor at California State University, Fullerton. His writing is on subjects ranging from the ambiguous messages given by festivals such as UC Davis' own Picnic Day to the folklore of mother-raised boys and men, shock talk in the workplace, and Martha Stewart and "taste cultures."

But, Mechling's crowning accomplishment is on a subject close to this Eagle Scout's heart: his 2001 book, On My Honor: Boy Scouts and the Making of American Youth. He researched the book for 25 years by accompanying boys and their leaders in the Sierra Nevada on camping adventures.

The book, plus numerous articles on Boy Scouts, has made Mechling a favorite among the national media when reporters are looking for experts to interpret the latest Scouting conflict.

Even with Mechling's media fame, fellow American studies professor, Patricia Turner of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, is stumped when asked to identify what are Mechling's "specialties." "His specialties are American studies and folklore," she said. "In the professional societies to which we both belong (American Studies Association, American Folklore Society, Western States Folklore Society), Jay enjoys the complete respect of our colleagues as a razor-sharp scholar and a superb teacher," says Turner, who is interim dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies.

She and other colleagues concur about his devotion to teaching.

"Jay's enthusiasm for his discipline and his students never wavers," Turner said. "I've talked to him about teaching in every possible setting, from waiting for luggage at airports, on the phone, while we are both checking our mail in the office."

Adds fellow American studies professor Carolyn de la Peña, who nominated Mechling for the award, "It would be difficult to rival Jay Mechling when it comes to innovative approaches to teaching."

She points to the incident related to her by James Shackelford, director of the Integrated Studies Honors Program, at the beginning of fall quarter 2001. Mechling was just about to teach an honors freshman class on the state's energy crisis when Sept. 11 occurred.

Shackelford received an e-mail on Sept. 12, 2001, from Mechling suggesting they had been given a "teachable moment" to engage these freshmen in a discussion of this major national tragedy.

"Instantly, our theme changed to 'Sept. 11, 2001,' and a new list of guest speakers was arranged within a few days," Shackelford said. "The seminar proved to be an enormous success."

Mechling is the first to tell his students in a class about contemporary American pop culture that they will know more than he does on the topic.

"Teaching is about critical thinking skills — and it doesn't matter whether these kids are learning alone or in small groups," Mechling said.

"He taught me new ways of thinking about and understanding academia, and, by extension, the world around me," wrote Jesse Friedman, '04, in his nomination of Mechling. "Thousands of movies and television shows have been forever ruined, since I no longer think, 'Gee, that was a neat show,' but instead delve into a folkloric examination of the plot and allegories."

Among his tricks in teaching, Mechling reveals, is both the dedicated act of listening to his students and an ability to express his own enthusiasm for ideas and issues in American culture.

Wrote former student Jacque-line Curran, "What amazes me most about Professor Mechling is how he could make the most obscure topics academic. Any conversation topic from the 'X-Files' to graduate school, he managed to made academic and cite several books and papers in the course of a train ride or a run-in at the Coffee House."

Mechling's own enthusiasm as a teacher inspired a number of his students to follow a similar career path.

"As an English teacher, I've used several examples from Jay's classes to open my students' eyes to the American culture around them: like how rumors of tainted candy at Halloween are usually just rumors, though they say a lot about our fears of tainted food," alumnus Andy Delfino wrote in his nomination.

Mechling is not daunted by technology, whether it is encouraging students to use voice recorders, camcorders and cameras to create class projects, or to teach a cross-national class taught between Japan and UC Davis via television.

A commitment to public education is the main reason that he spends many hours being interviewed by the media about cultural topics. Mechling says this public outreach is part of his mission as an educator.

"American studies was founded in the 1930s, and the early founders really wanted a larger public for the humanities," Mechling said. "We aren't just studying 'culture,' but the consequences of culture."

This idea of getting "useful" humanities ideas and information out of the university and into the public eye prompted Mechling's decision to head a grant-writing effort in 2000-01. It resulted in UC Davis receiving a five-year seed grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2001 to create one of 10 regional humanities centers.

Although the director's hat has been passed on, Mechling's vision has held true. The center, which five years later is involved in projects ranging from Angel Island immigrant history to collecting cultural information on the Sutter Buttes has become a visible public program at UC Davis that promotes the study of humanities throughout the region.