Dr. Robert Lapp has been a faculty member in Mount Allison’s English Department since 1997. A research specialist in early nineteenth-century literature, he has taught a wide variety of introductory courses as well as numerous advanced courses in the literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Both his students and his peers praise the care with which Dr. Lapp democratizes the classroom, giving students a role in decisions about course activities and assessment. His practice of using "freewrites" (short written responses to assigned readings) challenges students to develop and express their own opinions, which then act as springboards for class discussion.

Dr. Lapp writes that his aim is to promote "a model of literary inquiry as consensual rather than competitive, as a process of negotiated rather than esoteric insights."

Dr. Lapp’s enthusiasm for teaching helped him earn, in addition to the AAU Distinguished Teacher Award in 2003, the Herbert and Leota Tucker Teaching Award. Dr. Lapp has also been active in promoting teaching excellence, both at Mount Allison and elsewhere. He has served on the University’s Senate Committees on Teaching and Learning and on Teaching Evaluation. He has led, organized, and participated in numerous workshops on teaching development at regional and national meetings throughout the Maritimes. Dr. Lapp believes that "what they draw from me remains ultimately very simple: the desire to share as effectively as possible the enthusiasm I feel for the literature I have the privilege to teach."