Regents' Outstanding Teaching Awards, 2011

Record-Breaking Number of Regents' Awards go to English Department Faculty Members

“Offered annually in recognition of faculty members at the nine University of Texas System academic institutions who have demonstrated extraordinary classroom performance and innovation in undergraduate instruction, the Regents' Outstanding Teaching Awards are the Board of Regents' highest honor. With monetary awards that range from $15,000 for contingent faculty (including adjunct faculty, lecturers and instructional assistants) to $30,000 for tenured faculty members, the Regents' Outstanding Teaching Awards are among the largest in the nation for rewarding outstanding faculty performance. Given the depth and breadth of talent across the UT System, the awards program is likewise one of the nation's most competitive.

Faculty members undergo a series of rigorous evaluations by students, peer faculty and external reviewers. The review panels consider a range of activities and criteria in their evaluations of a candidate's teaching performance, including classroom expertise, curricula quality, innovative course development and student learning outcomes.

Established by the Board of Regents in 2008, the Regents' Outstanding Teaching Awards complement a wide range of Systemwide efforts that underscore the Board of Regents' commitment to ensuring the UT System is a place of intellectual exploration and discovery, educational excellence and unparalleled opportunity.”
From Regents' Outstanding Teaching Awards Homepage.

English Department Award Recipients

Stacy Alaimo, Ph.D.
Professor of English and Distinguished Teaching Professor

My foremost pedagogical intention is to seriously engage students with some of the most significant problems of our time. I think it is crucial for students to work through conceptual, philosophical, ethical, and interpretive questions in a rigorous, scholarly manner, but at the same time, for them to see how these seemingly "academic" issues actually have real-world consequences. I hope that my students will continue to find that the content of my classes not only prepares them for their professions but also helps them develop their own frameworks for making sense of their work, their lives, and their world.

Laura Kopchick, M.F.A.
Senior Lecturer

In each of my creative writing classes my goal is always to provide opportunities for each student to stretch her or his critical faculties, discover her or his own strengths, and craft her or his writing toward a unique product that is recognizably the single student's work. My belief is that good writers must be good readers and that the best way to discover one's own way is to understand how others have made a similar journey.

Peggy Pritchard Kulesz, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer

Successful teaching requires continual assessment of my teaching effectiveness and reflection on student success. Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of teaching is that no semester is ever the same. As an educator, I never want to be satisfied with the status quo. Every day of class, every syllabus, every assessment, every interaction with a student becomes a possibility for my own revision, invention and improvement.

Kenneth M. Roemer, Ph.D.
Piper Professor, Distinguished Teaching Professor, Distinguished Scholar Professor, Professor of English

"I'm Looking through You". To that Beatles' title I'd add "at" and "to." I look at my students' immediate scholarly needs, but I also look through the present to what might be valuable to them long after we part. And I look to them for ideas that help me to reinvigorate this whole wonderful process of looking through, at, and to.