Campus News
Celebrating teaching
The Academic Senate’s Committee on Teaching (COT) has selected the 2025-26 Excellence in Teaching Award recipients and the 2025-26 Distinguished Teaching Award recipient.
The Academic Senate’s Committee on Teaching (COT) has selected the 2025-26 Excellence in Teaching Award recipients and the 2025-26 Distinguished Teaching Award recipient.
Since 1996, our campus has been recognizing and celebrating instructors for their Excellence in Teaching here at UC Santa Cruz. This recognition at the highest level promotes and illuminates the long tradition of innovative and creative teaching at UC Santa Cruz and its central importance to the university’s mission.
Annually, the committee receives approximately 450 student nominations, and this year selected 10 instructors. The student comments about the impact their excellent pedagogical practices have had on their lives were inspiring for COT to read. COT appreciates their contribution to the important mission of teaching on our campus and is grateful for the opportunity to showcase their accomplishments.
Dion Farquhar, Lecturer, Politics Department
Her passion, vibrance, and enthusiasm for the subject matter and her interactions with students displayed a genuine interest and consideration for others.
Dion consistently insisted on mutual respect, set clear expectations for civil discourse, and created a classroom environment where all students felt safe to speak openly and honestly. Even when students strongly disagreed with her own perspectives, she graded fairly and evaluated work based on merit rather than ideology.
“I have never experienced a class with so many difficult conversations handled so thoughtfully, and Dion’s ability to manage conflict, encourage critical thinking, and maintain academic integrity was truly commendable and reflective of excellence in teaching.
Dianne Hendricks, Teaching Professor, Biomolecular Engineering Department
Dr. Hendricks goes above and beyond to support her students, both academically and personally. From the very beginning of the course, she made learning accessible and engaging by tailoring the material to our interests and current events in biomedical engineering, constantly asking for feedback to make sure the class was relevant and exciting. She learned every student’s name within the first week and made it a point to check in with us individually, which created a warm and inclusive learning environment.
Her passion for biomedical engineering was obvious in every lecture. She brought in real-world applications, guest speakers, and often shared her own experiences in the field to spark our curiosity. This made even the most technical content feel purposeful and inspiring.
“She makes sure that her teaching is holistic and guides students to become successful not just in her classes but also in life.
Carla Hernández-Garavito, Assistant Professor, Anthropology Department
“Dr. Hernandez’s class was one of the most engaging courses I’ve ever taken. The majority of her assignments and projects got us out of our textbooks and readings, and had us actually apply the concepts we were learning in class. For example, our final was a media fair that required us to teach others how and why a piece of archaeological pop culture was (or was not) accurate and useful as a piece of science communication. We were prohibited from making a basic slide deck, which allowed us to get really creative and detailed without work. I, for one, made a trivia board game in which I had to do so much research to ensure accuracy. I have retained so much knowledge from this class, more than most other classes I’ve taken. Her approach to teaching kept us all engaged and really helped us see how pervasive pseudoarchaeology is in our daily lives. It really is everywhere and I’ll never forget that.”
Rekia Jibrin, Assistant Professor, Education Department
Rekia was honest and humble. I keep coming back to that. She’s incredibly intelligent and accomplished, yet I felt like her equal. When we discussed theory she would express her own confusions, contradictory perspectives, and what she learned from our analysis. More than that, the space she facilitated promoted discussion of our experiences being students. The turmoils, the frustrations, the uncertainty that comes with being an emergent professional scholar that came up were met with honest answers about what to expect and how to support ourselves. Further, she gave us theory she doesn’t like. Which sounds odd at first read but as we formed our own opinions on theorists we debated our own, often challenging, viewpoints with hers. She gleamed with excitement while validating our unique perspectives as scholars. She made me feel like a scholar.
Dustin Richmond, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering Department
Professor Richmond has been the most influential person in my undergraduate career. His dedication to his students is exceptional, and he consistently goes out of his way to support us. He is patient, approachable, and makes difficult material engaging and fun!
I have always been able to rely on him for guidance and honest advice. He regularly spends time in lab and makes himself available outside of office hours to help students succeed. He is open to feedback, willing to stay after class to answer questions, and creates an environment where students feel comfortable asking for help. Through student led discussions and an emphasis on independent thinking, he fosters a supportive and engaging classroom. Honestly just one of the most genuine professors and person I have met!
Sarah Sanford, Assistant Teaching Professor, Art Department
Sarah is an exceptional art teacher who is always encouraging and pushing students to experiment and deeply engage with their work. She has a strong passion for print-making always having numerous artists we can look to for inspiration. After just one class I felt I had improved to mich under Sarah’s guidance, so I continued to take the classes she taught and I truly would not be the artist I am without her. She is a light in the art department. She is incredibly understanding and caring, I can tell she values her students.
Matt Schumaker, Assistant Professor, Music Department
Going into this class I knew absolutely nothing about making music, I had never made a song before. Matt not only covered a wide variety of topics but supported every single student’s different process and style. Even when I felt like I wasn’t as good as other students, he always noticed the little details in my pieces that I did work hard on. He is the best teacher I’ve ever had, and I will never forget his genuine passion for each student’s piece, the care and excitement he showed when discussing each piece makes you want to come to class. He always encouraged our interests and the assignments progressed naturally, they were always open ended enough that you could bring in your personal interests while implementing what was learned in class. I was very intimidated coming into this class but he made it very accessible, he explained every concept well and gave us the opportunity to do it ourselves in class. However, the class still challenged everyone. He met people where they were at and you could tell in his feedback on assignments. You could tell that he wanted everyone to love electronic music as much as he did and I feel eternally grateful that I had the opportunity to take his class.
Anne Sizemore, Assistant Teaching Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry Department
Professor Sizemore turned organic chemistry from something I’d dreaded since high school into my favorite subject. Using frequent applications examples, she showed us the importance of understanding these seemingly abstract molecules. She met every student where they were at, and encouraged us to ask even the most basic questions. She incorporated lots of low-risk assessments in class and in our homework that allowed us to see our learning progress in real time. This either boosted our confidence or gave us the opportunity to identify exactly what we needed to review. Beyond making o-chem fun and approachable, she was really there for her students. At the beginning of every class she’d walk around the room greeting us and checking in with anyone that wanted to chat. She had regular one-on-one office hours available for whatever we might need to succeed in her class. She was honest with us about the amount of work we needed to put in to succeed, but she also made it clear that she believed each and every one of us could do it.
Dylan Tarleton, Teaching Assistant, Sociology Department
Dylan was incredibly supportive, prepared and communicative. He had a crazy long commute just to be on campus and often managed to utilize that time to find interesting supplemental connections to our class content. He wrote up very helpful discussion agendas, made me feel comfortable speaking and discussing in discussion which I rarely feel. He’s very funny but also incredibly smart, providing excellent feedback, and further encouragement into relevant topics. I also appreciated his passion and lack of beating around the bush, directly saying the uncomfortable truth, or even explaining it in an easy to understand way. He gave a guest lecture in class on W.E.B Dubois, which was very thorough, interesting and helpful in understanding the material of Dubois we were reading. He was so widely loved by every student he had in discussion, that when we had to book individual slots for final presentations, his were full he had to ask for others to move around. Great guy, great book recommendations, doing cool research and I can’t recommend him enough.
Matt Wagers, Professor, Linguistics Department
Professor Wagers consistently made complex material accessible without simplifying it. He encouraged questions, welcomed different perspectives, and offered feedback that pushed my thinking in productive ways. What stood out most was his genuine investment in our learning. I left the course more confident in my ability to think critically and engage deeply with the material, thanks to his guidance.
The presentations were interesting and interactive, and it was clear that the professor had passion for the subject. The presentation was also clear and informative, so I feel like I learned a lot of content effectively in this class.
In addition to celebrating the Excellence in Teaching awards, COT also awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award. Based on nominations from faculty and colleagues, this award acknowledges pedagogical contributions that include but also go beyond any one course, in addition to recognizing an instructor who has made significant contributions to educational equity within and beyond UC Santa Cruz.
This year’s 2025-26 recipient for the Distinguished Teaching Award is Emily Murai, is a lecturer for the Environmental Studies Department and is the Program Director for the Center for Reimagining Leadership. The nomination put forward noted, “Dr. Murai is one of the most dedicated, student-centered, insightful, brilliant, caring, and talented teachers I have known in my decades in academia. In her 16 years at UCSC, Dr. Murai has been an exemplary teacher for the Writing Program, College Nine, and Environmental Studies.”
We are looking forward to this event in the 2026-27 academic year during the annual Senate and the Teaching and Learning Center’s Teaching Week collaboration in February 2027!
The celebration of all of our teaching recipients will be held in spring 2027 which is co-hosted with Chancellor Larive!