Maynard (Sandy) Mack

Maynard (Sandy) Mack, Jr. taught at Maryland from 1974 to 2011.  His main focus was undergraduate Shakespeare, though he taught everything from Chaucer through Spenser to Milton frequently.  He was director of the English Honors program for 10 years and of the University Honors Program for another 10, serving as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and adviser to the Lilly Teaching Fellows in between.  In 2004 he returned from Honors to teach full-time in English where he taught upper level Shakespeare and the department's Introduction to Shakespeare, developing that course into an I-course in 2009 (“Acting Human: Shakespeare and the Drama of Identity”) as part of the first year offerings in the new General Education program.   He directed PhD dissertations on Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. 

From 1983-87 with Professor Leeds Barroll he co-directed national residential summer institutes for high school teachers titled, "Shakespeare: the State of the Art."  From 1988-1994 he co-directed, with Dr. Adele Seeff of the Maryland Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies, a program called CAST (Center Alliance for Secondary Schools Teachers and Texts) that offered an array of seminars for area teachers ranging for one day sessions to semester-long courses.  From 1994-2000 he served as Resident Scholar at the National Teachers Institute on Shakespeare run by Kevin Coleman of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts.  All these efforts were supported by the National Endowmand for the Humanities.  He has been a part of the Folger Shakespeare Library High School Fellowship Program since 1975, offering, most years, two sessions for these students chosen from throughout the DC area.

He considers his work with graduate student TAs, modeling teaching through close reading, and his work with high school teachers the most rewarding and effective of his 43 years in the profession. 

Teaching: Harvard, 1969-1974
                Maryland, 1974-2011