CAS and SEAS Faculty Honored with Teaching Excellence and Mentoring Awards

Stephanie Newell, professor of English and interim chair, Council on African Studies, is the 2022 winner of the Sidonie Miskimin Clauss Prize for teaching excellence in the humanities. In a ceremony held in the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, Yale College Dean Marvin Chun shared the nominating students’ words of praise for professor Newell. According to Dean Chun, her students are dazzled by professor Newell’s ability to challenge them, intellectually and compassionately. She draws out and elevates students reluctant to speak up in other courses, pushing them to dig deeper as they progress through the course material. One student said of professor Newell, “She demands intellectual rigor and challenge from all of her students, but perhaps more significantly, requires passion, and wants us to investigate what we’re most interested in. Her seminars are the most lively I’ve ever been in, because everyone is hungering for more. She more than matches us with her own passion, intellect, and infectious laughter, which was the highlight of every Tuesday.”

Quan Tran is this year’s winner of the Richard H. Brodhead ’68 Prize, awarded for teaching excellence by non-ladder faculty. This prize should come as no surprise to those who know Quan or have heard all the rave reviews from students about her inspiring teaching. I am grateful for the amazing work Quan has been doing to engage Southeast Asian Studies with the vibrant field of Critical Refugee Studies and Yale’s program in Ethnicity, Race and Migration. The inspiration she gives students for focusing on Southeast Asian diaspora issues has brought our Council right to the center of important conversations at Yale. You can read more about her prize, and the full prize citation at this link from Yale News.

Michael Dove is this year’s recipient of the Graduate Mentor Award from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. For those of you who know Michael, and all that he has done for graduate students over the years, I think you will agree with me that this is a truly well-deserved award. It is difficult to overstate how important Michael’s support has been to scholarship on Southeast Asia, Environmental anthropology, and much more. Michael’s one-on-one mentoring and justifiably famous “Dove Lab” is well-known among students, and his combination of intellectual and rigor care for students provides a model for us all to aspire to. For those who missed it, the announcement from Dean Cooley is available here. (While you are at it, check out this profile of his recent work, along with a great photo, at Yale News.)