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Professor receives Social Studies Award
October 28, 2004
CARROLLTON, GA - While University of West Georgia Associate Professor Dr. Judy Butler was growing up in Arkansas all she really wanted to do was teach.
The Georgia Council for the Social Studies recognized Butler’s love of teaching by naming her as its Outstanding Educator.
Butler
began her 35-year teaching career as a fifth grade teacher, progressing
to middle school and high school, and later serving as the social studies
and international education specialist in the Arkansas Department of Education,
while former President Bill Clinton was governor.
“It was a very positive experience for me,” Butler said. “It just opened the world for me. I got to travel quite a bit and have opportunities to meet people and go places to represent my profession. I enjoyed it until my department was dissolved and things changed. They always do in state government.”
Butler received a bachelor’s degree in education from Southern Arkansas University, a master’s from the University of Oklahoma and a doctorate of education from Vanderbilt University. She taught at the University of Texas at Austin before coming to UWG eight years ago. No stranger to receiving awards, she has served as a Governor’s Teaching Fellow and in 1998 received the Georgia Board of Regents’ Chancellors’ Award.
“I came here in the middle of the Olympics in 1996,” Butler said. “I knew within hours of being here that this is where I wanted to be.”
Butler also was a key person in developing an alliance between the UWG College of Business and College of Education to establish a degree in economics with secondary education, said Dr. Leland Gustafson, professor of economics.
Gustafson and Butler serve as co-administrators for UWG’s Center for Economic Education.
“Her background as a classroom teacher and her leadership in various state and national organizations has been a great asset for the center,” Gustafson said. “In the various classes and workshops we have taught together over the past three years, I am always amazed at the depth of understanding that Judy has for the needs and concerns of the teachers we serve.”
Teaching has been a passion for Butler and history and geography were her favorite subjects, thus the concentration into social studies. She points out that passing on what she learned in the classroom to others is heartwarming.
“I’ve had former students come to me to tell me what they were doing. That is very gratifying that they would remember me and share their lives,” Butler said. “Although my profession has put me in several different places, I’ve always been teaching and that what is most important. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a teacher.”
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