School of Arts & Sciences Teaching Awards |
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April 22, 2014, Volume 60, No. 31 |
Steven J. Fluharty, dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, and Dennis DeTurck, dean of the College, announce the following recipients of the School’s 2014 teaching awards, to be presented on Thursday, May 1, at an awards reception that is open to the University community. The reception will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. in room 200, College Hall.
Ira H. Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching
This year’s recipient of SAS’s highest teaching honor is Timothy Corrigan, professor of English. Created in 1983, the Ira H. Abrams Award recognizes teaching that is intellectually challenging and exceptionally coherent and honors faculty who embody high standards of integrity and fairness, have a strong commitment to learning and are open to new ideas.
Dr. Corrigan, who was the founding director of Penn’s Cinema Studies Program, engages both students and teachers alike in the intellectual rigors of film analysis as a means of critical and theoretical inquiry. According to one of his faculty colleagues, his “lectures feel like small discussions, and seminars like intense laboratories for collaborative learning.” Noting the importance of his pedagogical publications to extend the impact of his teaching beyond Penn, another colleague notes, “Tim’s textbooks on writing about, analyzing and theorizing film and literature … manage to make sophisticated approaches to film analysis and theory accessible and relevant to students in their first film classes.”
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Dean’s Award for Innovation in Teaching
This award, which recognizes exceptional creativity and innovation in instruction, is presented to Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, associate professor of history of art.
In combining traditional pedagogical methods with digital tools and innovative on-site, hands-on seminars that bring students into close and meaningful contact with artists, curators and original works of art, Dr. Shaw “develops the opportunities to understand the workings of the art world in its multivalent complexities,” according to one of her fellow faculty members. Her teaching, notes another colleague, “goes beyond typical approaches… [to enhance] her students’ understanding of the objects at the center of [their] arguments.”
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Dean’s Award for Mentorship of Undergraduate Research
This award recognizes faculty members who have excelled in nurturing undergraduate students’ desires and abilities to conduct meaningful research. This year SAS honors Antonio Feros, associate professor of history, who, in mentoring students writing their honors theses, according to one of his colleagues, “goes the extra mile, writing extensive comments on papers and chapter drafts, providing bibliography and research tips, praising yet pushing students to do their best work.”
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Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching by an Assistant Professor
This award recognizes a member of the junior faculty who demonstrates unusual promise as an educator. The 2014 recipient is Brian Gregory, assistant professor of biology. His students praise his clarity, organization and commitment to revising courses constantly to reflect the latest advances in the field. One student notes, “Dr. Gregory … challenges all the students to think as if they themselves are primary investigators running a scientific lab.”
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Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching by Affiliated Faculty
This award recognizes the contributions to undergraduate education made by the School’s non-standing faculty. This year’s recipient is Eileen Doherty-Sil, adjunct associate professor of political science and associate director of undergraduate studies in political science. According to a colleague, “Eileen’s versatility in… teach[ing] a broad range of topics [including international relations, American politics, human rights and NGOs] is matched by the passion and effectiveness that her students praise her for.”
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LPS Distinguished Teaching Award; LPS Distinguished Teaching Award, Non-Standing Faculty
This award honors outstanding teaching and advising in the College of Liberal and Professional Studies (LPS).
This year’s recipient of the award for standing faculty is Ellen Kennedy, professor of political science. According to a faculty colleague, in teaching both survey and seminar courses on topics ranging from modern and ancient political thought to markets and money, “[Ellen] takes students on stimulating journeys that connect concrete “real world” issues such as debt to philosophical tracts and abstract ideas and normative theories.”
The award for non-standing faculty goes to Stephen Steinberg, lecturer in philosophy, whose classes, as it has been noted by his colleague, “intersect with the most crucial philosophical issues facing citizens of the 21st century [and] are paradigms of what liberal education should be.” |
Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching by Graduate Students
This award recognizes graduate students for teaching that is intellectually rigorous and has a considerable impact on undergraduate students. This year’s awardees are:
Iggy Cortez, History of Art
Julius Fleming, English
Elaine LaFay, History and Sociology of Science
Rose Muravchick, Religious Studies
Prakirti Nangia, Political Science
Juliet Sperling, History of Art
Emma Stapely, English
Ashley Tallevi, Political Science
Jeffrey Ulrich, Classical Studies
Robert Willison, Philosophy |
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