What the providence college community has known about Dr. Robert B. Hackey's extraordinary teaching gifts for almost a decade is now known across the country.

Last month, the professor of health policy and management was named the Rhode Island 2008 Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

This is the second major teaching award Hackey has earned this year. In April, he was named the 2007-08 Joseph R. Accinno Faculty Teaching Award recipient at PC. The Accinno Award is presented annually to the tenured faculty member who best exhibits teaching excellence, passion, enthusiasm for learning, and concern for students' academic and personal growth.

The U.S. Professors of the Year Program is the only national program to recognize excellence in undergraduate teaching and mentoring.

Hackey was chosen alongside 43 other state winners, four national winners, and winners from the District of Columbia and Guam. He was selected from among 300 nominees.

Criteria for earning the honor include extraordinary dedication to undergraduate teaching and contribution to undergraduate education in the institution, community, and profession, among others.

"This award really reflects the special environment we have created for teaching here at PC," said Hackey. "I have grown tremendously as a teacher since joining the faculty here, due in no small part to the wonderful people I am privileged to work with in many different departments who share a similar passion for improving student learning.

"I am blessed with colleagues who are not afraid to try new things, and who are eager to reflect on the work we do in the classroom."

Hackey said he appreciates the collaborative spirit among his colleagues and that their desire to share ideas and knowledge have "enriched my own teaching."

Hackey earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Rhode Island and his master's and doctoral degrees from Brown University. In 2007, he was a visiting scholar at the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University.

In addition to teaching a variety of health policy and management courses at PC, Hackey helped inaugurate the Providence College Health Policy Forum in 2006. He has served on a number of College committees, including the Committee for the Enhancement of Learning, the Committee on Academic Rank and Tenure (CART), and the Instructional Technology Committee.

He also has authored Rethinking Health Care Policy: The New Politics of State Regulation (Georgetown University Press, 1998) and co-edited The New Politics of State Health Policy (University Press of Kansas, 2001).