Excellence in Teaching Award

The UCEA Excellence in Teaching Award is presented to individuals who have provided outstanding teaching, course development, mentoring of students, and service to continuing education. This award recognizes those who have made significant contributions to credit or noncredit programs and who have provided inspirational teaching to continuing education students.

Pedro Ferreira

Widener University

What is Dr. Ferreira teaching this semester? This is a frequent question each term for those in the Academic Advising Office at Widener University's University College. "Students tell me repeatedly how much they enjoy learning from Professor Ferreira because he makes a subject interesting and can explain why the course material has real world applications," notes Nikki Ritterbeck, Assistant Director for Academic Advising. "This is especially important to our adult learners who are chiefly concerned with recognizing the value of what they spend their time on in class."

In 2003, Widener University began its Outstanding University College Adjunct Faculty of the Year Award, given to the adjunct faculty member who, as voted by students, is the best in the classroom. Ferreira, a psychology professor at the College, has been nominated by his students every year since, and was honored with the award in 2004, and again in 2007.

“As a non-traditional, part-time student at Widener University from 1999 through 2006, I was extremely fortunate to participate in three of Dr. Ferreira’s psychology courses at different stages of my undergraduate career,” says former student Jean E. Lock. “In the classroom, Dr. Ferreira is ever mindful of, and plans his instruction around, the preferences and pressures of non-traditional students, who are often building careers and raising families as well as pursuing educational goals.”

Perhaps this is because Ferreira can personally relate to those circumstances. He arrived in the United States as a teenage immigrant from Cuba in 1962; through the ROTC program, he earned a degree in psychology from the University of Delaware and a commission in the United States Army Reserve. Early in his career he worked with the Family Court of the State of Delaware, the state’s Division of Public Health, and Human Services, while continuing his education. He earned a M.Ed. in college counseling from the University of Delaware, and a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Temple University. Ferreira went into private practice in 1984, and has since earned an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He joined Widener’s adjunct faculty in 1999.

“He is supportive of all we do for our adult students, but most importantly he is supportive of the adult learner,” says University College Dean Emily Richardson. “He is committed to our efforts in helping the adult student gain an undergraduate degree.”