James Holt McGavran Jr.

Described by one of his colleagues as “the kind of teacher a student never forgets,” James McGavran was selected Sept. 29 as the 2006 recipient of the highest teaching honor bestowed by UNC Charlotte – the Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence. McGavran, an English professor at UNC Charlotte since 1973, was chosen from a prestigious list of finalists.

McGavran earned his undergraduate degree from the College of Wooster, his master’s degree from Columbia University and a doctorate from UNC Chapel Hill. He specializes in teaching and researching the English Romantic period of literature. He was a finalist for this award in 1995 and was named “English Graduate Faculty Member of the Year 2005-2006” by UNC Charlotte’s English Graduate Students Association.

He has taught numerous courses including first-year com¬position, approaches to lit¬erature, the Romantic era and modern British fiction. Additionally, he has taught special topics courses at the graduate level, several interdisciplinary courses and has served on multiple advisory committees.

Continually seeking to engage his students’ interest, McGavran creatively keeps his courses relevant. For example, he arranged for students to have the opportunity to tour North Carolina’s Outer Banks with a famed nature writer and facilitated field trips to Charlotte parks while teaching a course titled “The Idea of Nature.”