Insights from Teaching Award Recipients

Every year, American University honors faculty by distributing Faculty Awards for teaching and service. The CTRL Beat acknowledges the deep commitment that the award recipients have demonstrated to promote inclusive and innovative teaching.  

In this article, we take a reflective seat and hear from a few Faculty Award recipients about the honor of receiving their awards and their advice to other instructors. The insights of each award winner are encapsulated by an action statement, followed by the title of their award, department and school affiliation. 

Insights from award recipients are presented in alphabetical order by last name. 

Nathaniel Herr—Maintain Empathy

Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time, Tenure-Line Appointment Award

“Being willing to take a student’s perspective.”

I am deeply humbled and honored to have received this award. Teaching and mentoring have provided my most meaningful experiences and proudest achievements in my time at American University. I feel validated by this recognition and reinvigorated to continue to try my best to be an advocate for students and to meet their pedagogical needs.

The advice I would give to others is to make a conscious effort to maintain empathy in the many ways you interact with students. Try to put yourself in their shoes as they complete your assignments, sit in your lectures, prepare for your exams, and write to you with unique requests. Remember that your class is just one relatively small part of the worlds they are building during college. Being willing to take a student’s perspective, even when it diverges from your own experiences or expectations, can go a long way in helping you to refine your approach and have positive interactions with students that will inspire them to engage with your material and make the work more fulfilling for you.

Thomas S. Kahn—Invest Time in Students

Outstanding Teaching in an Adjunct Appointment

“I dedicate considerable personal time getting to knowing each of my students.”

I am honored to receive AU’s award for Outstanding Teaching in an Adjunct Appointment.  Teaching is one of the most challenging and rewarding responsibilities I have ever undertaken. I believe in an active and engaging learning process and utilize class readings, my lectures, guest lecturers, personal lessons from my career and one-on-one meetings with students to create a dynamic and interactive educational experience.

During classes, I often break students into small groups which are asked to develop a solution to a problem I have been discussing in my lecture. Then the groups report back to the entire class on their solutions. Because we are studying Congress, students will hear directly from senators and representatives who discuss the very topics we are discussing. For example, when we are studying the federal budget process, students hear from the chair of the Congressional budget committee. When we study how Congress operates its internal affairs, they hear from a former speaker or majority leader.

I also dedicate considerable personal time getting to knowing each of my students. I try to learn their interests, goals, and academic challenges. Many of my students remain in touch long after the semester is over. I make a special point of helping students find internships and jobs.

Pallavi Kumar—Teach Every Semester Like the First

Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time, Term-Line Appointment Award

“View the materials through the lens of who is in your class that semester.”

I am so grateful and humbled by this honor. I have been teaching at American University for 21 years — first as an adjunct beginning in 2002, then as a full-time faculty member in 2009 and then serving as division director from 2012 to 2020.

In my first multiyear request in 2011, I wrote this: “Teaching full-time at American University has been the ultimate fulfillment of my professional goals.” More than a decade later and two decades after I first started teaching, it still holds true. As an alum, this award is even more meaningful.

The best part about teaching communications is the ability to incorporate what is happening in the world into the classroom. Even though I have been teaching at AU for more than two decades, I am always reinventing what I am teaching since the field is constantly changing. That is what still excites me as well as thinking of innovative ways to increase student engagement. Many of my classes feature simulations of varying kinds so that students can be in the role of a practitioner rather than just listening to a lecture.

My best advice for faculty regarding teaching is to teach each semester and each class session like it is your first. That doesn’t mean you can’t reuse your materials and assignments. Of course, you can. But to view the materials through the lens of who is in your class that semester. Are they on the more quiet side? Then think of ways to alter your class activities to draw out more voices. Are they super engaged and eager for new challenges? Think of ways to harness that energy and try something different. Some of my most memorable classes were ones when I threw out the script and tried something different. By taking the pulse of the class every semester, faculty have the opportunity to meet students where they are and propel them further through their teaching. There is no greater achievement or deeper satisfaction than that!

Jon D. Wisman – Be Intellectually Adventuresome

Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award

“Our privileged adventure as scholar/teachers is to explore the frontiers of knowledge and to assist our students in experiencing adventure in knowledge’s pursuit.”

I’ve been in harness as a professor at American University for 52 wonderful years. During these years, I’ve always been treated by colleagues, staff, and administrators with generosity and respect. I cannot imagine a more nourishing and rewarding workplace. And to top it off, AU has rewarded me for my scholarly and teaching contributions, twice selecting me for the Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching (1979-80; 1996-97), and now the Scholar/Teacher Award for 2022-23. I’m deeply honored by this recognition. My career here at AU has been the best of good fortune.

I think of my scholarly work as the adventure of expanding the frontier of knowledge in my field of study. I think of my teaching as helping my students recognize that their own pursuit of knowledge is best experienced as one of life’s greatest adventures, one that becomes ever richer with time and thus never gets old.

But the adventurous in pursuing knowledge must be ever alert to how the knowledge we already embrace can serve as a major impediment, prompting us to hastily dismiss new ideas that do not conform to our held knowledge. I propose to my students that while they should be loyal to loved ones, they should not be loyal to ideas. And especially, don’t marry them. Be intellectually promiscuous. Flirt with them. Have affairs with ideas and end these affairs when a competing and more promising idea comes alone. Knowledge is never static, but ever evolving. And so should be our pursuit of it.