The award was largely in recognition of Schweitzer's anthologies and two books. Her first collection, "The Literatures of Colonial America," is the first of its kind to include works outside the United States, she said. Schweitzer also served as the editor for "The Heath Anthology of American Literature," which includes voices from other languages and cultures that have been previously left out of traditional anthologies, making it a "multicultural, radical, leftist version of the Norton [Anthology]," she said.
Schweitzer's interest in anthologies emerged from a need to balance family life and her academic career. Unlike writing novels, a task that typically necessitates uninterrupted periods of time to think and read, Schweitzer said the editing required for anthologies could be done in "short spurts," giving her time to raise two children while pursuing her academic career.
"What's unsaid in that award is also the ability to have family and successfully integrate family into a career as an academic and a scholar," she said.
Her books include "The Work of Self-Representation: Lyric Poetry in Colonial New England," which explores gender politics of Puritan culture, and "Perfecting Friendship: Politics and Affiliation in Early American Literature," which explains the model of friendship as a political ideal in today's democratic society.
When she first entered the field of early American studies, Schweitzer said it was an area of study that was largely dominated by male scholars.
"I think for me, what the award was saying was that it's relatively difficult for women to put together those three things the scholarship, the teaching and the mentoring," she said.
Schweitzer's achievement will help improve the reputation of the College's English department, said Ernest Hebert, an English professor and director of the College's Creative Writing program. The English department lacks Americanists specializing in New England and Schweitzer was one of the few foremost experts in the field at Dartmouth, Hebert said.
"She values people who go after knowledge, and someone like that is perfect to have on a college campus," he said.
Schweitzer said that mentoring students plays a significant role in both her academic and personal life.
"The best class I have is when I'm learning something," she said. "What I try to do in my classrooms is to create a community of inquiry. That really speaks to some students who then just become my colleagues, and then we become friends for life."
Schweitzer's former students said her classes were memorable for their community outreach.
Troup Wood '14, who took her American Poetry class, said that students visited a local high school and taught, read and performed poetry with high school students.
"I think it's cool that she wants to help us learn by taking the classes out of the ivory tower and into the real world," he said. "She made learning more practical, and it's hard to make poetry feel practical."
Hangping Xu GR'11 said he enjoyed Schweitzer's community-based "Inside Out: Prison, Women and Performance" course, in which students collaborated with the female inmates of Sullivan County Jail in Claremont to produce a theatrical piece. Xu said Schweitzer continued to serve as his mentor after he graduated from the College, offering him scholarly advice and personal support.
"I think that the most impressive thing for her as a literary critic was combining her humanistic training with real life experience," he said.
