Barbara T. Gates of Newark, AS '61M, Alumni Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies, has been recognized as one of the nation's leading women scholars by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Gates received the AAUW Founders Distinguished Senior Scholar Award this spring. The honor, open to women in all academic disciplines, recognizes a tenured woman at the pinnacle of her academic career for a lifetime of outstanding teaching, publication and impact on women in her profession and community.

Currently on sabbatical, Gates is finishing the third in a series of three books dedicated to women and science. The first, Natural Eloquence: Women Reinscribe Science, consists of 14 essays about women--some of them scientists, some translators of scientific language, who have "repackaged science" to make it more accessible to the public. Written with Ann Shteir, associate professor of humanities and director of the graduate program in women's studies at York University in Canada, the book features women who have altered literary history, women's history, the history and sociology of science and the history of education.

The second book, Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World, published by the University of Chicago Press, is a celebration of women naturalists, scientists and nature writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The illustrated book combines Gates' scholarly research in the Victorian period, her interest in women's issues and her avocations of bird watching, nature study and animal advocacy.

The third book, which also will be published by the University of Chicago Press, is a companion anthology to Kindred Nature, featuring the primary texts of the women naturalists and scientists.

"Barbara's scholarship... exemplifies an extraordinary ability to make cultural and literary inquiry into the lives of historical women personally relevant to readers today," Maria H. Frawley, AS '86M, '91PhD, now an associate professor of English at UD, says.

Gates, who taught the University's first course in women's studies in l971, refers to herself as a teaching scholar. "As we work together, drawing upon those areas, which I myself am pondering and writing," she said, "I have found that my students have often enriched, inspired and challenged me, rather than the other way around. I am deeply attached to the art of teaching as communication, and I am genuinely fond of students as people. These dual attachments often make the hardest days brighter.

"I have never in my life not wanted to go into a classroom on any given day," Gates says. "A friend of mine once told me, 'Barbara, you should pay the University for the privilege of teaching. You love it so much.'"

Former students, like Frawley, have found Gates a joy.

"She began to foster my interest in women's studies by asking difficult questions about gender as a category of literary and historical analysis. Barbara always asked questions, as opposed to supplying answers," Frawley says.

With a strong commitment to change, Gates is known for keeping her courses in an ever-evolving state and for her innovative course development. Over the years, she has taught or team-taught a number of special courses designed around what she calls "a wedding of my avocations and vocation."

Among these courses are ones in landscape and nature poetry, poetry and ecology, nature writing, nature and Victorian poetry, ecofeminism and team-taught courses in nature and human nature, landscape awareness and landscape and literature.

Additionally, Gates was one of the first UD professors to introduce Native American writing into the curriculum, and she has taught across cultures in all of the introductory genre courses in English. Additionally, she has team-taught some of her Victorian courses with professors in sociology and art history.