Colin Davis was one of eleven faculty honored with the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching during the annual Faculty Awards Convocation, Wednesday, Feb. 23. The 2010 honorees for the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching represent each school, the College of Arts & Sciences and the Joint Health Sciences departments.

Davis, a professor of social and behavioral science, was an Ingalls Teaching Award recipient in 1997 and Ireland Prize winner in 2010. He regularly offers his time outside the classroom to students, graduates, parents, colleagues and the community. As part of his outreach, Davis has been the content professor in American History for Birmingham public schools, and he hosts parents of incoming UAB students in parent orientation. Davis often assists students in research, and he is the co-chair of Graduate Student Research Days.

Davis also holds the attention of his students in the classroom. One student says, "He presents information that I have never learned before and makes it interesting." A colleague adds, "Colin holds his students to a high academic standard and knows how to help them meet these standards with innovative methods. In short, Colin is a remarkable teacher." Davis routinely has the highest student-evaluation numbers on the IDEA surveys, often averaging five on a five-point scale.

Davis teaches students at all levels in courses ranging from the US History survey to a graduate seminar in Comparative Labor History. He also has taught the graduate seminar on Research and Writing — one of the most important and difficult courses in the curriculum — and a Freshman Learning Community course on Social and Behavioral Sciences, which he developed himself.