Grad students awarded for excellent teaching

Ten graduate students will be awarded the College Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching by Graduate Students on Thursday.

The award is one of several dean's teaching awards. Most recognize faculty, but all exist because "we want to recognize our most successful and innovative teachers," College Dean Dennis DeTurck said.

The 2009 recipients are David Bateman and Barbara Elias in political science, Laurel MacKenzie in linguistics, Ryan Muldoon in philosophy, Jonathan Pogach and David Russo in economics, Jared Richman and Brandon Woods in English, Judith Sierra-Rivera in romance languages and Shea Vela-Vick in mathematics.

Winners are chosen through a nomination and selection committee process, DeTurck explained. Last fall, students were asked to nominate their teaching assistants and graduate-student lecturers. These nominations were then forwarded to the different School of Arts and Sciences departments for review, along with other supplementary materials such as Penn Course Review ratings and personal letters.

Many recipients said they were excited and honored to receive the award, especially because it is a testament to their relationships with their students.

Muldoon, who has been both a teaching assistant and more recently, a lecturer, wrote in an e-mail, "That they took the time to write letters to support my nomination means a lot to me."

"This award is just a material symbol of the happiness of being a TA," Sierra-Rivera wrote in an e-mail. "A TA is both a student and a teacher. Therefore, I feel responsible for a group of students ... and at the same time, I can relate to them in their process of learning."

Muldoon and MacKenzie agreed that being able to share their love for a certain discipline was one of the most fulfilling aspects of teaching.

"Linguistics is a subject the majority of students don't encounter until they get to college, so teaching a linguistics course is introducing your students to a scientific study that many of them never knew existed," MacKenzie wrote in an e-mail. "It's so gratifying when I see my students experience that excitement I remember [from personal undergraduate experiences.]"

Though they are heading toward more teaching experiences as they delve deeper into academia, they will always be students themselves, studying areas for which they have developed passions.

Even when classes disperse and academic years end, Sierra-Rivera said, "the learning process continues."

Another 12 graduate students will be given the 2009 Penn Prize for Excellence in Teaching by Graduate Students today at 4:30 p.m. in the Graduate Student Center.

This year's recipients will be Roshan Abraham in classical studies, Roy Anati in computer and information sciences, Philip Ernst in statistics, Greg Hall in philosophy and law, Fern Lin in marketing, Goran Lynch in electrical and systems engineering, Laura Napolitano in sociology, Jon Pogach in economics, Nathaniel Prottas in history of art, Shalini Roy in economics, Charles Sharpe in history and Hannah Voorhees in anthropology.

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