Dr. Charles “Bo” Brewer ’54 accepted the 2008 Raymond D. Fowler Award at the American Psychological Association’s 2008 Annual Convention in Boston in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the APA and psychology.
Nearly every nook of psychology education today bears his stamp, fellow educators say. Brewer has participated in almost every important conference concerning undergraduate education in psychology during the last 30 years, including a keynote address at the International Conference on Education in Psychology held in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2002.
He edited the Div. 2 (Society for the Teaching of Psychology) journal Teaching of Psychology for 12 years, was the 1979-81 president of the Council of Undergraduate Psychology Departments and has served on the APA’s Board of Educational Affairs, Council of Representatives and Board of Directors.
Brewer is the coeditor of many books and the psychology editor for Encyclopaedia Britannica. He has published numerous book chapters, articles, and reviews and is an editorial consultant for 15 publishers of psychology textbooks.
Dr. Brewer has been an inspiration to the more than 200 former students who have gone on to get doctorates in psychology, a staggering number for a professor who only teaches undergraduates.
A book titled The Teaching of Psychology: Essays in Honor of Wilbert J. McKeachie and Charles L. Brewer, edited by Stephen F. Davis and William Buskist, was published in 2002. Brewer received the American Psychological Foundation’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1989, which was later renamed the Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award as a tribute to his eminent contribution to education in psychology, indicating that, “Charles Brewer epitomizes what this award stands for.”
Brewer established the Charles L. Brewer Endowed Fund at Hendrix College in 2002 in memory of Dr. John P. Anderson, former psychology professor at Hendrix, and in honor of his wife Marjorie Suhs Brewer and daughter Stephanie Brewer Foley. Dr. Brewer also received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Hendrix in 2004.