If you watched the NCAA March Madnessbasketball tournament last spring, you didnt just see a talented West Virginia University mens team beating the odds on the hardwood to make it to the Elite Eight.

You also saw and heard an articulate group of WVU student-athletes shining in post-game interviews.

And Dr. Carolyn Peluso Atkins, the WVU speech pathology professor who is responsible in part for that winning performance, is joining her own elite group today (Nov. 17) as the 2005 West Virginia Professor of the Year.

The award is given annually to a select group of educators from across the country by a Washington group that honors excellence in educatorsthe Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Atkins is one of 46 professors of the year named by the organization. This years field also includes four national winners. Recipients were selected from more than 300 applicants across the country.

Shes the 15th WVU professor since 1987 to earn the prestigious award, which is given to college educators for their commitment to students and their innovation in the classroom.

Those words,commitment,studentsandinnovationeasily apply to speech pathology and audiology professor who earned her first degree from WVU in 1969 and has been at WVU ever since.

Atkins is perhaps best-known at WVU as the originator and instructor of theSpeaking to Communitiescourse (known popularly asJock Talk) which she designed in 1990 specifically for the more visible members of the WVU populationits student-athletes.

Many of these men and women in Mountaineer blue and gold face microphones, for better or worse, at the end of the competition.

In the class, Atkinscharges get moving when they meet individually with her to write five-minute motivational speeches that they then take on the road to area public schools. After that, it all comes back home.

The final exam is the delivery of that same talk before their coaches, advisors, teachers and friendsnot to mention members of the campus athletic council, the press and the public.

Craft was the catalyst behind the course 15 years ago, Atkins said.

It was an exercise (a sweaty-palmed one, at that) put out by Atkins to teach athletes how to eliminate those peskyverbal fillerstheums,ohsandyou knowsthat permeate everyday speech, especially post-game interviews.

Along the way, an amazing thing happened.

The talkers started turning inward to reveal personal aspects of their lives, off the field and off the campus. And the instructor, as she said, learned a few things about them, and herself.

She was as guilty as anyone else, she admitted, of employing the prevailingjockstereotype of the spoiled, pampered athlete. Then she started listening to what they had to say in those assigned talks.

They talked about growing up in the projects and not having any food,she said.They talked about not knowing their fathers, and the family members who were lost to drugs and violence. Suddenly, the elimination of verbal fillers wasnt one of the more important issues.

An issue, and lesson Atkins wants to impart in that class is this: Life goes on after the game ends, and athletes better be readyfor the time when theyre no longer athletes.

WVU s 2005 Elite Eight team members (and Atkinsstudents) Mike Gansey, Kevin Pittsnogle, Johannes Herber, Frank Young, B.J. Byerson and Patrick Beilein agree.

They couldnt help but be impressed by the professor who taught them poise and even came out to cheer them on in press conferences.

We learned in her class that effective public speaking increases confidence in ourselves,they wrote in their nominating letter to CASE .Dr. Atkins is one of our favorite instructors, because she showed a special interest in each one of us.

And thats an assessment that goes across the boards for Atkins in the classrooms of the WVU College of Human Resources and Education, her home base.

Colleagues, administrators and students in her upper-level courseslike SPA 270 and Honors 493Aall say the professor is a clutch player.

She has a blend of passion for teaching and compassion for listening to the stories of her studentslives that is extremely rare,said Dr. Lynn Cartwright, who chairs the department.

Shes a teachers teacher,said College of HR&E Dean Anne Nardi, who nominated Atkins for the award.

Dr. Atkins will move mountains to enhance learning,former honors student Crystal Hightower said, noting that her professor also takes the Honors students into the elementary schools to read to children and has them present career speeches at the secondary education level.

The praise may come so easily because shes been on both sides of the desk at WVU .

After obtaining a bachelors in speech in 1969, she earned a masters degree in 1970, a masters equivalent in 1974 and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction in 1977.

Shes also served as a graduate teaching assistant and a part-time English instructor. (more)

Atkins has published numerous articles, has taken a turn designing Internet instructional materials for her classes, and has a shelf full of teaching awards large and small, from H&RE Outstanding Teacher awards to the WVU Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching to the Golden Key International Honour Societys Golden Apple Award to Chi Omega SororitysInstructor of the Monthrecognition.

And she owes it all in part to an uncle who was eager to learn. An uncle who turned her into a teacher before she even knew it.

My Uncle Raymond is cognitively impaired,she said.When I was learning how to read and spell as a little girl, I taught him the words, too. Fifty years later, he still repeats, �€~r-a-t, rat,and �€~c-a-t, cat.And its still a thrill to hear it.

WVU s President David Hardesty also praised Atkins.

Carolyn Atkins is one of our bright, outstanding educators,”Hardesty said.”She is a product of WVU , receiving her undergraduate and graduate degrees here, and making Morgantown her lifelong home. Students tell us she really connects with themfrom the star athletes in her public speaking class to the talented students in her upper level honors classes. It’s obvious that she tries to balance her expertise in the classroom with human attributes like courtesy, caring and concern. She is clearly student-centered.”

Atkins is a Morgantown native and the daughter of Mildred Peluso and the late John Peluso. Shes married to Billy Atkins, and the couple has two daughters, Ashley Martucci, a teacher and doctoral student at WVU ; and Melany, a fourth-year medical student at WVU .

WVU s past CASE winners: Sophia Peterson (1987), Carl Rotter (1988), Judith Stitzel (1989), Robert DiClerico (1990), Pat Rice (1991), Jack Hammersmith (1992), Richard Turton (1993), Gail Galloway Adams (1994), Bernard Allen (WVU-Parkersburg, 1996), Christine Martin (1998), James Harms (1999), JohnJackRenton (2001), Elizabeth Fones-Wolf (2002), Laura Brady (2004).