Winner: Naoco Wowsugi (CAS-Art)

Motivation: Naoco Wowsugi was selected for this award for finding creative ways to teach sustainably and to teach sustainability in an academic field that faces unique challenges in these areas: Art. She practices and shares sustainable art-making methods with her students, but also goes beyond the materials by weaving sustainability values into her teaching approach and curriculum, including curating a Visiting Artist series that amplified local eco-conscious artists.

Winner: Michele Lansigan (CAS-Chemistry)

Motivation: Michele Lansigan has been a Certified Green Teacher since she started teaching at AU nearly 10 years ago. She is given this year’s Green Teacher of the Year Award for her continued efforts to commit to a large number of sustainability measures; and for engaging her students in conversations about the sustainability in her field – Chemistry – as well as how it applies to the real world. She always includes an “Environmental Chemistry” section in her courses, where she discusses the global impact of climate change, highlights AU’s Zero Waste Policy, and strongly encourages students to reduce, reuse and recycle, including informing them about the “cradle-to-cradle” method of recycling electronics, and explaining where they can find electronic recycling bins around campus.

Winner: Katie DeCicco-Skinner (CAS-Biology)

Motivation: Katie DeCicco-Skinner has been a Certified Green Teacher for the past 12 years. She is given this year’s Green Teacher of the Year Award for switching the biology department from plastic gloves to 100% biodegradable gloves, thus removing an estimated 20,000 plastic gloves per year from landfills. The impact is likely even larger, after she also encouraged the Chemistry and Environmental Science departments to do the same.

Winner: Alberto Espinosa (KSB – Information Technology and Analytics)

Motivation: Alberto Espinosa is given the 2020-2021 Green Teacher of the Year Award for his consistency of committing to being a Certified Green Teacher for the past 13 years; for continuously committing to a large number of sustainability measures; and for helping to improve the program by repeatedly providing constructive feedback on its design.

Winner: Abdelrahim Salih (CAS-World Languages and Cultures)

Motivation: Abdelrahim Salih teaches as an adjunct at AU where he has been a Certified Green Teacher for 11 years. He is given the 2019-2020 Green Teacher of the Year Award for successfully launching a Green Teaching Certificate Program inspired by ours at Howard Community College, where he also teaches and works full-time. Spreading the idea of Green Teaching beyond AU can exponentially increase our impact.

Winner: Sarah Menke-Fish (School of Communication)

Motivation: Sarah Menke-Fish receives this award both in recognition of her long-term commitment to sustainable teaching, manifested through her yearly certifications, since the inception of the Green Teaching Program in 2008, and in recognition of her continuous work to incorporate sustainability topics into her Film and Media Arts courses, enabling her students to reach audiences well beyond her class. Her students have created projects working with Earth Conservation Corps, The National Park Service, and the AU Arboretum, as well as created short webisode series on environmental issues for NBC-4. At the same time, she is teaching her students how to limit their environmental footprints as film-makers, by requiring all presentations and video assignments to be submitted and presented online and on flash drives.

Winner: Jesse Meiller (CAS-Environmental Science)

Motivation: Jesse receives this award both in recognition of her long-term commitment to sustainable teaching, manifested through her eight years of certification, six of which at the highest, gold, level, and in recognition of her dedication to continuously making incremental changes that contribute to a more sustainable university, while inspiring her students to do so as well. The Green Teaching Certificate has grown out of the innovative ideas of its participating faculty, and despite always scoring high, Jesse continuously challenged herself to find additional ways to be green, thus also contributing with new innovative green teaching measures for other faculty to adopt. One of Jesse’s key traits, which many of her students have highlighted in survey responses about the Green Teaching Program, is her absolute dedication to walking the talk, by not only teaching sustainability, but showing her students how to live sustainably, and how every little action counts, making a very big difference when added up.

Winner: Larry Engel (School of Communication)

Motivation: Larry Engel receives this award both in recognition of his long-term commitment to sustainable teaching, manifested through his nine years of certification at the highest, gold, level – since the inception of the program, and in recognition of his dedication to teaching his film students about the environmental footprint of their work. In addition to being the co-author of the book The Best Practices of Environmental Filmmaking, Larry actively encourages his students to track their “carbon footprint” throughout their final and large film productions. Through his work, this effort carries over into his students’ future careers as filmmakers, and thus has a great impact well beyond American University.

Winner: Eve Bratman (School of International Service)

Motivation: Eve Bratman receives this award both in recognition of her long-term commitment to sustainable teaching, manifested through her seven years of earning the highest, gold level of the Green Teaching Certificate, and in recognition of her championing several campus wide sustainability initiatives. One such initiative that has received wide recognition – and a lot of buzz! – across and outside of campus is the AU Beekeeping Society, which Eve founded in 2011, and which has brought much needed awareness to the environmental issues that affect bees, while also enabling students to be involved in promoting this cause. Other initiatives include proposing a Sustainability Designation for courses taught at AU, and writing about AU’s fossil fuel divestment initiative in collaboration with students and colleagues.

Winner: Rachel Louise Snyder (Department of Literature, CAS)

Motivation: Rachel Snyder receives this award in recognition of her creativity in implementing innovative sustainability measures—in particular to reduce the use of paper—in a field that traditionally relies heavily on the use of paper, thus becoming a role model in showing that it is possible to make a difference with small adjustments in your teaching. Professor Snyder has been a certified green professor since she started teaching at American University in 2009, and has yet to accept a student assignment turned in on paper. She has also gone beyond her own classes to make AU greener, among other things by turning the Creative Writing Program’s two paper newsletters into an online magazine.

Winner: Robin Broad (School of International Service)

Motivation: Robin Broad receives this award because of her long-time commitment to teaching sustainably – she was a “green teacher” before the Green Teaching Certification program existed, and has consistently lived up to her reputation by earning top scores every year since the program’s inception in 2008. In addition, professor Broad is recognized for her commitment to not only making her courses greener, but for helping her students become “green students” as well as “green citizens,” by teaching them how to turn ideas into action, and how their actions are connected to a broader movement that extends well beyond the classroom.

Winner: Kiho Kim (CAS, Environmental Science)

Motivation: Kiho Kim receives this award because in addition to participating in developing and testing the program in 2008, Kiho has consistently not only re-certified, but increased his efforts to teach sustainably every year. Most significantly, he has pushed his students to examine the idea of sustainability on a real and personal level, by developing class projects that connect the ideals of sustainability to actions, thus greening not only his classrooms but, more importantly, his students.

Winner: Alex Hodges (School of Education/ University Library)

Motivation: Alex Hodges receives this award because in addition to achieving a top score on the Green Teaching Certification Survey, he demonstrates a strong commitment not only to making his own classes more sustainable, but to encouraging his teacher candidate students to model green teaching initiatives in their future classrooms.

Winner: Yana Sakellion (CAS-Art)

Motivation: Yana Sakellion receives this award because in addition to achieving a top score on the Green Teaching Certificate Survey, she demonstrates that it is possible to integrate sustainability into the curriculum in a field where it is not common – graphic design and fine arts – thus showing that teaching courses on traditionally environmental topics is not a prerequisite for teaching about sustainability.

Winner: Victoria Kiechel (School of International Service)

Motivation: Victoria Kiechel received the 2009-2010 Most Innovative Green Teacher of the Year Award by the Center for Teaching, Research and Learning (CTRL).  Kiechel was chosen to receive the award in recognition of her efforts to take a relatively conventional course topic of building design and approach it from the point of view of sustainability, integrating green principles as well as practical applications of sustainable building right here on the AU campus.  For example, students conducted assessments of workspaces to evaluate whether building occupants have access to views and natural light from their desks.