Senior ARHU Lecturer Receives Provost's Excellence Award for Professional Track Faculty in Teaching

Justin Lohr honored for teaching excellence.

Justin Lohr, senior lecturer in the department of English at the University of Maryland (UMD), has received the 2017-18 Excellence Award for Professional Track Faculty (PTK) in teaching. The award is presented by the UMD Office of Faculty Affairs and the Provost for excellence in one of three areas: teaching, research and service.

Lohr holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from UMD and a B.A. in English and Spanish from St. Joseph's University. Having joined the English department as a lecturer in 2010, Lohr has taught a range of writing courses, including “Academic Writing,” “Advanced Composition,” “Writing for the Health Professions” and “Writing for Change.” He has served as an assistant director of the Academic Writing Program in the department of English and as editor-in-chief of “Interpolations,” a journal that spotlights exceptional writing composed by the university's English 101 students.

Lohr is the recipient of numerous UMD service and teaching awards, including four Academic Writing Program Distinguished Service Awards (2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017); the English department’s Teaching Excellence Award for Professional Track Faculty (2016) and Writing Program Award (2016); three UMD Center for Literary and Comparative Studies Grants (2013, 2016 and 2018) and a Foxworth Creative Enterprise Initiative grant (2014). He is also a frequent presenter at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) with forthcoming publications on the impact of community literacy courses on the community participants in those programs. In collaboration with Heather Lindenman, assistant professor at Elon University, Lohr has co-authored an essay in “Reflections” and has another under review at “Community Literacy Journal”. In both pieces, Lindenman and Lohr reflect on different aspects of teaching community literacy.

Continuing to combine scholarship and practice, Lohr is currently a member of a four-person qualitative research team working on the project, "Studying Revision and Reflection in an Academic Writing Classroom at the University of Maryland." The team includes Jessica Enoch, associate professor of English and director of the Academic Writing Program; Elizabeth Ellis, assistant professor of English at Mississippi State University and Cameron Mozafari, doctoral candidate in the English department at UMD. The team presented their findings at the March 2018 CCCC, with a forthcoming co-presentation by Ellis and Lohr at the 2018 Thomas R. Watson conference. They are currently working on a collaborative essay based on this research.

Amanda Bailey, professor and chair of the department of English, praises Lohr for his contributions to the UMD community.

“Justin is a creative and innovative teacher, a thoughtful administrator and a top-notch researcher who has contributed significantly to our writing programs, ” said Bailey.

Photo: Justin Lohr, 2016 (Rachel George for the Diamondback)