The A&S Superior Teaching Awards recognize some of the Faculty of Arts & Science’s most exceptional sessional lecturers and graduate student course instructors for their contributions to undergraduate education.
Congratulations to this year's recipients:
Danyse Golick, PhD Candidate/Course Instructor, Department of English
Danyse Golick is a PhD candidate in English and the Book History and Print Culture collaborative program. Her academic interests include digital studies, contemporary American literature, and fan studies. Using fresh, accessible and engaging teaching methods, she regularly encourages students to engage with novel objects of study such as fan fiction archives, video games and social media platforms. Golick has been highly commended for her commitment to student empowerment, community building and collaboration. Her ENG287 class, The Digital Text, was described by one student as “easily the most well-attended and participatory online class I’ve taken.”
Courtneay Hopper, PhD Candidate/Course Instructor, Department of Anthropology and School of the Environment
Courtneay Hopper was highly commended for her teaching of ANT434H (Health, Diet and Disease in the Past) under challenging circumstances. This course includes a lab component, and normally students would acquire hands-on experience by examining, for example, casts of dental remains. However she expertly faced the challenge of teaching these skills online to stellar evaluations from her students. In the words of just one student: “As a senior student who is about to graduate, I can say with confidence that this was one of the best–taught courses that I've ever taken.”
Jessica Whitehead, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Italian Studies and Cinema Studies Institute
Jessica Whitehead’s research focuses on screen cultures in North America. She has taught courses in Italian Studies, Cinema Studies and Book and Media Studies. She has published widely, and is also the coordinator of U of T’s Teaching and Learning Community of Practice. Whitehead has succeeded in fostering a safe and inclusive classroom environment for students, and has co-authored a faculty resource guide for students with different learning styles. She deploys multiple pedagogic innovations in her teaching, and her work with the Online Learning Academy was recently recognized with an Excellence Through Innovation award.
Murat Umut Inan, Sessional Lecturer, Department of History
Murat Umut Inan specializes in the literary, cultural and intellectual histories of the Ottoman Empire and the wider Islamic world. He is currently completing a book about the reception of Persian language and classics in Ottoman history during the period of empire building. His classes draw on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, helping students to gain a comprehensive understanding of historical events. He has been credited with enriching and diversifying the Department of History’s curriculum, and his course on early modern Islamic Eurasia has provided students with a valuable perspective on transregional connections, interactions and networks in world history.