Clemson University English professor honored for teaching excellence

Published: March 1, 2011

By Taylor Reeves

CLEMSON — Tharon Howard, professor of English at Clemson University, has been honored as the 2011 recipient of the J.R. Gould Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Society of Technical Communication.

The award recognizes teachers who devote themselves to academic mentorship and display personal and professional concern for their students.

The award committee applauded Howard’s work as a mentor of students in website usability and community involvement and also commended him for encouraging his students to participate in Society of Technical Communication competitions. The society is the largest professional society in the world dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication.

Howard is director of Clemson’s Multimedia Authoring, Teaching and Research Facility and the Usability Testing Facility. His research areas include professional communication, website usability testing and user experience design, multimedia authoring, digital publishing, instructional technology design and digital rhetorics. His latest book, “Design to Thrive: Creating Social Networks and Online Communities that Last,” was released in 2010.

Howard said the J.R. Gould Award reminds educators of the impact they have on the work force.

“When you’re down in the weeds helping a student to design a task-scenario for a usability class project, you tend not to think about the impact that experience will have on that student’s career and the products she will design for companies,” he said. “But just being nominated for this award gave me the opportunity to read incredible stories from former students about how what they learned from their experiences had a direct impact on their careers and their companies.”

Howard will receive the award in May at the Society of Technical Communications' annual conference in Sacramento, Calif.

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