Bruce Maylath, professor of English and upper-division writing coordinator, has been recognized with the IEEE Professional Communication Society’s top prize for teaching. He received the Ronald S. Blicq Award for Distinction in Technical Communication Education at the society’s annual ProComm conference Oct. 4 at the University of Texas at Austin.
The awards committee noted Maylath as the co-founder and coordinator of the Trans-Atlantic and Pacific Project, known as TAPP. Started during the 1999-2000 academic year, the project links writing, usability testing and translation classes via collaborative documentation projects at 28 universities in 15 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.
“I see the Blicq Award as honoring the work that I’ve pioneered through the international network we call the TAPP,” Maylath said. “News of the award arrived out of the blue on July 20 and literally at the very moment that the first-ever international TAPP conference concluded here at NDSU. As I said to the participants from 11 countries, ‘I view the award as not for me alone, but for all the instructors involved in the TAPP network. Collaboration can’t happen solo; it takes every one of us.’”
As an award winner, Maylath delivered a plenary address, titled “Examining the Cult of Monolingualism.” The address is expected to be published in an upcoming issue of the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.
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