Dr. Peter Giordano, professor and chair of the Psychology Department, was named today as the 2007 Tennessee Professor of the Year, an award selection determined by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Dr. Giordano, who is currently in Washington, D.C. for special ceremonies to receive his award, was selected from more than 300 top professors in the United States. Belmont will be holding its own celebration to honor Dr. Giordano on Mon., Dec. 3 at 2 p.m.
Dr. Giordano said, “I am very honored to receive this award. After 18 years of full-time teaching, there is one thing I know for sure: good teachers are not lone wolves. I have been extremely fortunate to have been surrounded by many gifted teachers here at Belmont with whom I have talked continuously about the craft of teaching. This award is theirs as much as mine.”
Dr. Giordano joined Belmont’s Psychology Department in 1989 after receiving his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology) degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A past National President of Psi Chi, the honor society for psychology, he frequently teaches courses in such subjects as Abnormal Psychology, Psychology of Personality, Psychometrics and Introduction to Psychological Science. He is also a member of the Belmont Undergraduate Research Symposium Steering Team, Fellow of Division Two of the American Psychological Association and a consulting editor for Teaching of Psychology. In the past year alone, he has received the Tower Award for exceptional contribution to campus life from Belmont’s Student Affairs division and the Academic Inspiration Award from Belmont’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
Dr. Dan McAlexander, Provost of Belmont University, said, “Pete Giordano has been an outstanding faculty member since his first days on the Belmont campus, receiving the high honor of our own Chaney Distinguished Professor award and serving as a former director of the Belmont Teaching Center. Pete is an excellent model of how all Belmont faculty are committed to teach in ways that empower students to learn to their highest potential. His own ongoing commitment to intellectual exploration makes Pete a model of the teacher-scholar, a way of teaching that enables his students to thrive.”
Belmont University professors have received the Tennessee Professor of the Year Award two other times in recent history, in 2000, for Dr. Mike Awalt (Philosophy) and in 2001, for Dr. David Julseth (Spanish).

Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne, a knight, physicist and Anglican priest, spoke on campus this week regarding the collaborative relationship that should exist between religion and science. President emeritus of Queen’s College at Cambridge University in England and author of 15 books on the connections between physics and faith, Polkinghorne’s treatment of theology as a natural science invigorated the search for interface between science and religion.
Speaking on the “gifts” that science and religion offer one another, Polkinghorne noted that many scientists have lost their sense of wonder about the fields they explore and the research they undertake. “I actually believe that science is possible because the world is a creation and we are creatures made in the image of a Creator.”
At the same time, he noted, Christians should embrace what science has to offer as it allows us to understand how the world works. In speaking of one often controversial topic, Polkinghorne explained that evolutionary potentiality echoes faith in that creatures “are allowed to be themselves and to make themselves… People who are seeking to speak modern truth should never fear truth regardless of where it comes from. I stand before you today as a man who has two eyes, the eye of science and the eye of religion. I can see more with both of those eyes together. They are truly friends, not foes.”