College Honors Outstanding Teaching
Professors and graduate students are celebrated for their impact In the classroom
Each year, the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences recognizes a number of faculty members and graduate students for their excellence as undergraduate instructors.
The most senior of the tenure-line faculty chosen to receive Weinberg College Distinguished Teaching Awards receives the E. LeRoy Hall Award. In addition, two more Distinguished Teaching Awards — the Arts and Sciences Alumni Teaching Awards — are reserved for members of the lecturer faculty.
The Award for Excellence in Mentoring in Undergraduate Research, meanwhile, is given to a faculty member who exhibited particular skills in and dedication to mentoring undergraduate students engaged in research. The College also recognizes graduate students who excelled as teaching assistants.
This year’s winners — who will be celebrated at a June 3 luncheon — include:
The Weinberg College E. LeRoy Hall Award
- Gary Saul Morson (Slavic Languages and Literatures)
Morson’s work extends over a variety of areas, including literary theory, the history of Russian and European ideas, and multiple literary genres. He is especially interested in the relationship between literature and philosophy. The Frances Hooper Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature has won “best book of the year” awards from the American Comparative Literature Association and the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the only Northwestern professor to have held simultaneously two endowed chairs.
Weinberg College Distinguished Teaching Awards
- Carole LaBonne (Molecular Biosciences)
In her laboratory, LaBonne, a professor of molecular biosciences, studies the cellular and molecular events underlying the formation, migration, and differentiation of neural crest cells. The studies conducted in the LaBonne lab are essential to understanding vertebrate development and have added importance due to the central role that neural crest cells play in a number of birth defects and cancers.
- Wendy Pearlman (Political Science)
Pearlman is the Crown Junior Chair in Middle East Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern. She has studied or conducted research in Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. She is the winner of the 2011 Deborah Gerner Grant for Professional Development and the 2012 R. Barry Farrell Award for Excellence in Training.
- Scott Sowerby (History)
Sowerby is a historian of early modern Britain and Europe with a particular interest in comparative history and transnational issues, including religious toleration, state formation, and cosmopolitanism. He is currently working on a book entitled States of Exclusion: Britain and France, 1685-1715, which explores the relationship between religious ideologies and state formation. He teaches courses on Tudor-Stuart Britain, the history of gender and sexuality, and the early British Empire.
Weinberg College Arts and Sciences Alumni Teaching Awards
- Ben Gorvine (Psychology)
Gorvine’s research seeks to understand the influences, both positive and negative, that fathers and father figures have on their children’s socio-emotional development. He is particularly focused on how fathers influence their children’s adjustment and peer competence. Gorvine is a senior lecturer and assistance chair at Northwestern.
- Amy Partridge (Gender and Sexuality Studies)
Partridge is a senior lecturer in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her teaching and research interests include topics in the history of medicine, sexuality studies, feminist science studies, gender and labor history, and cultural studies. She is currently working on two projects: a book called Performing the Sanitary Idea in Victorian Britain and a documentary history of the 1970s Women’s Health Movement in the United States.
- Elisa Baena (Spanish and Portuguese)
Baena is a senior lecturer and the director of the Spanish Writing Center. She currently teaches Spanish 202: Conversation on Current Topics; Spanish 203: The Individual and Society through Written Expression; and Spanish 301: Topics in Language.
Weinberg College Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research
- William Murphy (Anthropology)
Murphy’s research and teaching interests include youth and culture practice, the anthropology of violence, language, culture, and politics, and Liberia and Sierra Leone. At Northwestern, he is a lecturer of linguistic anthropology, a concentration within cultural anthropology that emphasizes qualitative approaches to the study of language in society.
Weinberg College Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Awards
Three graduate students have been chosen to receive Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Awards. They are:
- Richard Moy (Mathematics)
- Matthew June (History)
- Matthew O’Brien (Chemistry)