Each year, the Academic Senate’s Committee on Teaching (COT) selects faculty to receive Excellence in Teaching Awards. The award, launched in 1996, highlights the university’s long tradition of innovative and creative teaching and honors UC Santa Cruz instructors who have demonstrated exemplary and inspiring teaching.
UC Santa Cruz students submit nominations for awards, providing comments about their instructor and pedagogical practices' impact on their learning and the classroom environment. The COT then narrows down the list, looking for evidence that the nominee has thought deeply about teaching and learning and effectively applies that thinking in the classroom.
This year, the Committee on Teaching received 370 nominations. Eight honorees were selected from across all five divisions:
Lisa Berkley, Lecturer, Crown College
"Dr. Berkley is kind and considerate. She truly heard all of her students and taught us how to establish boundaries and exist as humans in a respectful but groundbreaking way.”
Carolyn Dean, Distinguished Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture
“Every culture is presented as equal, and in a class that covers three geographical areas, this was very nice to hear. Her passion helped to remind me why I am within this field”
Sakae Fujita, Lecturer, Language and Applied Linguistics
"Professor Fujita always came to class with a positive energy that was infectious among us students. She also relied upon and utilized her own personal experience to offer a unique and insightful perspective that greatly enhanced her instruction.”
Naya Jones, Assistant Professor, Sociology and Global and Community Health B.A. program.
“Dr. Jones is an artist in the craft of teaching. She is humane, normalized different ways of knowing, and is impactful as a cultural worker. I am telling you, Dr. Jones is a gem and we are fortunate to have her as one of our instructors.”
Pedro Morales-Almazan, Associate Teaching Professor, Mathematics (also Ron Ruby Teaching Award Recipient)
“Pedro always valued mental wellbeing first, incorporating mindfulness and comedy into his lessons. Overall, an amazing professor who helps make the college experience for undergraduate students so memorable as he always goes above and beyond for all of his students. He truly embodies the idea of never leaving any students to fall behind.”
Barun Dhar, Lecturer, Physics
“The most important lessons Dhar taught in every class were to show up, always be present, shoot for the stars, and believe in yourself. I’ve never felt like a professor saw my potential as much as Dr. Dhar did.”
Abdelrahman Elfikky, graduate student, Electrical and Computer Engineering
“He genuinely cares for each of his students and his discussion sections were insanely good. He is truly the most knowledgeable, caring, and professional TA I have ever had in my four years at UCSC.”
Samantha Gorman, Assistant Professor, Computational Media
“Have you ever left a conversation feeling as though your conceptual sense of the world has shifted on its axis? Every class of Professor Gorman's had this quality. She is filling a very unique role bridging arts and engineering pedagogy in a way that hasn’t been done before.”
Distinguished Teaching Award
Nathan Altice, associate teaching professor of computational media at the Baskin School of Engineering, was recognized with the UC Santa Cruz Committee on Teaching’s 2023-24 Distinguished Teaching Award.
He was awarded for his role in promoting inclusive teaching methods and driving transformative change in the teaching culture within the Computational Media department.
