Somers Excellence in Teaching Award (IAH Teaching Assistants)

Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhran (AMS) – IAH 207: Literatures, Cultures and Identities

A. T. Bodhran & K. Kidwell

Ahmisa is an outstanding example of teaching excellence, not only in terms of the content of his courses but also in terms of his innovative approach to teaching that content. He is committed to a flexible, non-hierarchical, and student-centered learning process, and he is able to put this into practice in the classroom without compromising the rigor of the course. To the contrary, students participate more actively and are more engaged with the course because of the unique process and the relationships between teacher-and-student and student-and-student that it generates. Ahimsa is enormously enthusiastic and he dedicates an equally enormous effort in his courses. The excellence of his courses depends on a highly organized, time and labor intensive structure, and his effectiveness implementing such courses is laudable. Ahimsa clearly has a gift in relating to students and making them comfortable and excited about learning, while at the same time providing students with an academically challenging learning experience.

Rebecca Koerselman (HST) – IAH 202: Europe and the World

R. Koerselman & K. Kidwell

Rebecca's commitment to teaching excellence is readily apparent in her interactions with students and her success at engaging students in active leaning and helping them to meaningfully relate the content of her course with their own lives. She is an enthusiastic teacher who is engaged with and attuned to her students’ needs. In her courses, she strives to help students develop critical thinking skills that will help them not only in her course but also throughout their undergraduate education and into their careers after college. Rebecca works to introduce students to ways of knowing germane not only to her own field of history but also to literary and film studies, philosophy, art, and music; and she helps students learn to integrate those ways of knowing into a coherent and nuanced approach to the critical issues raised within the course. In addition, she excels at creating a learning environment in the classroom that fosters respect for and sensitivity to difference, while at the same time facilitating a self-reflexive critical inquiry into the implications and complications of the variety of idea, beliefs, and values students articulate in class discussions and writing assignments.

Devlin Scofield (HST) – IAH 203: Latin America and the World

D. Scofield & K. Kidwell

Devlin's teaching excellence is evident both in his interactions with students—in the classroom, during office hours, and via email—and the many recommendations for the Somers Award he received from faculty, students, and other teaching assistants. Devlin is deeply committed to promoting active student learning in his courses and to fostering a learning environment in classes that engages student interest while at the same time maintaining high academic expectations and intellectual rigor. In his IAH classes, Devlin works with students to develop critical thinking, effective writing, and articulate expression. Further, he helps students to critically examine not only the past and the present but also to reflect carefully on their own places in the world and their relations with other cultures. He sees learning as a lifelong process and he seeks to enable students to use the skills and concepts they learn in his course beyond the classroom in their own lives and future careers.