The Georgetown University Semester in Washington, DC program has one of the country's best undergraduate teachers according to The Princeton Review (www.PrincetonReview.com). The Massachusetts-based education services company—widely-known for its test-prep courses, books, and student survey-based college rankings—profiles visiting assistant professor, Sam Potolicchio, in its new book, The Best 300 Professors (Random House / Princeton Review).

 

Published April 3, 2012, The Best 300 Professors is a project that The Princeton Review teamed up with RateMyProfessors.com – the highest-trafficked college professor ratings site in the U.S.—to develop. The book's impressive roster of top teachers features professors in more than 60 fields ranging from Accounting to Neuroscience to Sport Management. They hail from 122 colleges and universities across the nation. A complete list of the professors in the book is accessible at www.princetonreview.com/best-professors.aspx

 

The selection process took into account qualitative and quantitative data from survey findings and ratings collected by both The Princeton Review and RateMyProfessors.com. (See "How the Professors Were Chosen" below.) The professors featured in the book are a truly select group: from an initial list of 42,000 professors considered, the final group of "best" professors chosen constitutes less than .02% of the roughly 1.8 million post-secondary teachers instructing students at colleges and universities across the U.S. The professors in the book are not ranked (nor are their colleges ranked in this book) but each professor profiled received high ratings from their most important audiences, beneficiaries and critics: the students they teach and inspire.

 

Potolicchio, who teaches American politics and public affairs at Georgetown University, wants to inspire students to think about the world in ways they did not think were possible, and for them to be able to connect seemingly disparate bodies of information. He is constantly seeking to understand how each student learns things differently so that he can present the material in accessible and entertaining ways. Having taught at every level of the educational system and in many different cultures, he has a “unique panoramic educational vision”: “Teaching in a range of situations has added a depth and capaciousness to my pedagogical approach that allows me to understand how to animate a wide range of students.”

 

His course load includes Religion and Politics, United States Political System, and Presidential Rhetoric, and guest lectures by prominent politicians are a regular feature in some of his classes. “I love attempting to understand people, and studying the art of persuasion not only provides a lens into the motivations and methods of our political leaders but it also provides a unique perspective on the American voter and citizenry,” he says.

 

Said Robert Franek, Princeton Review's Senior VP / Publisher, "We developed this book as a tribute to the extraordinary dedication of America's undergraduate college professors and the vitally important role they play in our culture, and our democracy. One cannot page through this book without having tremendous respect for the powerful ways they enrich their students' lives, their colleges, and ultimately our future as a society. Together with his students who rated him so highly, we salute the Georgetown University professor and each of the other professors we profile for their outstanding teaching. We are truly pleased to recommend them—and the schools at which they teach—to college applicants and their parents who use our resources."

 

The Best 300 Professors also includes profiles of the colleges at which one or more of the book's top-notch professors teach. The school profiles give students considering attending these colleges information on admissions, tuition, SAT/ACT score ranges of admitted students, and other useful data. 

 

The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University and is not a magazine.

The Princeton Review and RateMyProfessors.com annually collect data from students at thousands of colleges across the country (and abroad) about their classroom experiences and assessments of their professors. For this project, The Princeton Review culled an initial list using its surveys of hundreds of thousands of students that revealed the colleges at which students highly rated their professors' teaching ability and accessibility. Data from RateMyProfessors.com identified more than 42,000 professors at those schools that students had rated on its site. Combining this info, a base list of 1,000 professors was formed. After obtaining further input from school administrators and students, as well as from Princeton Review's surveys of the professors under consideration, the editors of The Princeton Review made the final choices of the professors they profile in the book. Complete lists of the book's professors organized three ways (alpha by state/city/college/professor/department, alpha by professor/college/department, and alpha by department/professor/college) are at www.princetonreview.com/best-professors.aspx.