Dr. Tim Griffith Honored with the Walker Manning Teaching Award
Submitted on August 27, 2026
During our Opening Convocation, held on August 25, 2026, Dr. Tim Griffith was honored with the John Walker Manning Award. This annual award recognizes faculty who are exceptional educators and have shown a commitment to Georgetown College by engaging in extracurricular activities with students. Given its focus on mentorship and activities with students outside of the classroom, it is appropriate that, among our major faculty awards, it is the only one that can be nominated by students and is awarded by a committee of students, faculty, and staff working together.
This year’s recipient, Dr. Tim Griffith, is Professor of Biology and the Dwight M. Lindsay Endowed Chair. Griffith got his BA from Carleton College and his Ph.D. from Indiana University. A 22-year veteran of the biology department at Georgetown College, he was the lead author on two multi-million-dollar grants from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; helped found and lead the Science Honors Program and furthered that work through supporting student research and presentations; and he continues to teach regularly for Science Honors, including a summer Honors Reading Group.
One student had this to say about Dr. Griffith: “He always prioritizes students’ best interests and demonstrates a genuine commitment to their success, both at Georgetown College and in their professional lives after graduation.” She went on to give an example of how Dr. Griffith insisted that she take a difficult Data Computing course she was very hesitant to take, which ended up being central to her later success and growth.
During Dr. Jonathan Sands Wise’s award presentation speech, he added: “I have never run across the word “growth” as often as I did in reading the nominations for Dr. Griffith. Over and over, students and colleagues wrote of how he helps students grow, but beyond that, helps the campus to grow and thrive, often in quite literal ways. He was essential in helping the campus achieve Tree Campus USA status in recent years, as well as in rehabilitating the greenhouse and planting numerous trees, including those in the new riparian forest between Pawling Hall and Hinton Field. In fact, I think I can safely say that anyone who has had an opportunity to walk around with him will understand what one person wrote when they said that “his level of excitement over mangrove, or really any, tree is truly something to observe.”
