91制片厂

The 91制片厂 annually selects a small number of outstanding faculty for special recognition of achievement. This year, five faculty members from the College of Liberal Arts are honored for their excellence in听teaching and engagement. Learn about their work in the videos and profiles below.

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Amy Boylan
Associate Professor of Italian Studies

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Excellence in Teaching Award

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When you think of Italians, do you imagine people dressed in striped shirts like gondoliers? Passionate souls who, under a hot Tuscan sun, eat spaghetti from dawn til dusk, gesticulating about soccer matches and fashion shows? 鈥淪orry to burst your bubble,鈥� Amy Boylan might say to that characterization. As a scholar and teacher of Italian Studies, Boylan is dedicated to providing a nuanced picture of Italian culture that unsettles these romanticized stereotypes. Yet she is careful to help students understand rather than judge the very real differences between Italian and American culture. Her passion may be a single Mediterranean country, but her objective is nothing less than teaching the habits of mind that define all skilled global citizens.

Her expert methodology puts students front and center. That means active student participation through small group work, peer-to-peer instruction and student-led group discussions that challenge students to perform at the highest levels. And her instruction is innovative. Using social media and other web technologies, she brings the outside world in, putting students in virtual contact with native speakers and cultural experiences. She also takes students to the source, teaching onsite in Italy in the 91制片厂 study abroad program she directs. Department chair Stephen Trzaskoma notes, 鈥淧rofessor Boylan has consistently been the one who has taught the rest of us more than a thing or two about how to do it right.鈥�

Though she鈥檚 described by colleagues as humble, there are times when even Boylan must admit she鈥檚 doing it right. Note what she calls a small but significant moment in her classroom: a recent discussion about verb tenses and historical figures resulted in a riotous digression rich with learning about the movie 鈥淎braham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.鈥� Boylan recalls: 鈥淓verybody in class was laughing and participating and learning new vocabulary, and the students barely realized they were doing it all in Italian. It was a very satisfying moment.鈥�

At such times, Boylan might just sit back and feel gratified for creating a safe environment in which students can enjoy learning so much that they forget themselves.

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Gregory McMahon
Associate Professor of Classics, Humanities and Italian Studies

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听Gregory McMahon won the听Jean Brierley Award for Excellence in Teaching,听听which recognizes excellence in teaching by a faculty member over the course of a long-term distinguished career at 91制片厂.

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Stephanie Harzewski
Senior Lecturer in English

Excellence in Teaching Award

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鈥淲hat often makes an excellent teacher,鈥� says Stephanie Harzewski, 鈥溾��is the ability to work through fatigue.鈥�

It鈥檚 an apt statement from this senior lecturer in English whose students characterize her as consistently energetic, passionate, funny and challenging. They say she鈥檚 available on Skype at all hours and she鈥檒l come in early or stay late to help them with their writing. What sets her apart, notes one student, is that 鈥渟he genuinely cares about her students and would do anything to see them succeed both in the classroom and in life.鈥� That kind of dedication takes energy, indeed.

Harzewski has been tireless in curriculum development, as well. She鈥檚 created several classroom-based literatures courses and played a leading role at 91制片厂 in online offerings. One of her most successful courses, 鈥淪ex and Sensibility: The Rise of Chick Lit from Jane Austen to Bridget Jones,鈥� was profiled at both international and national conferences for exemplary online pedagogy. The course arose from research for her book, 鈥淐hick Lit and Postfeminism,鈥� published by University of Virginia Press, a work that exemplifies the active scholarly agenda she pursues to inform her teaching.

Harzewski鈥檚 success in the classroom is achieved through organization, enthusiasm and integrity. Consider her teaching of Samuel Beckett鈥檚 absurdist play 鈥淲aiting for Godot,鈥� a work famously reviewed as "a two-act play in which nothing happens twice." She notes that, sometimes, by the third day of discussing the work, she鈥檚 inclined to feel as if she鈥檚 in the "nobody comes, nobody goes" purgatory of the play. But she鈥檚 ready and springs into action. She turns to comic relief, using the Sesame Street "Monsterpiece Theater" parody of the play, and employs the Socratic method to rally students out of the seeming pointlessness of the play to expose its deep engagement with the significance of life. Every class meeting must and will have purpose and meaning. She insists upon it. 鈥淭here are typically no听deus ex machina听solutions for the teacher and students,鈥� says Harzewski. 鈥淲e work together to save ourselves from repetition.鈥�

Judy Sharkey
Associate Professor of Education

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Judy Sharkey won the听Excellence in International Engagement Award, which recognizes exceptional international engagement by a 91制片厂 faculty member.

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Susan Siggelakis
Associate Professor of Political Science

Excellence in Teaching Award

Here are some awards that Susan Siggelakis might win if they existed: Professor Most Likely to be in Touch with Former Students Throughout their Lifetimes; Professor Most Likely to Write Recommendation Letters for Scholarships, Awards, Graduate Schools and Jobs; Professor Most Likely to Convince Students that Joining Phi Beta Kappa is a Wise Move; Professor Most Likely to Advise and Mentor Students; and Professor Most Likely to Help Colleagues Through a Pedagogical Crisis. As it happens, this professor of political science has won a Teaching Excellence Award, for all the reasons listed above, and more.

Siggelakis teaches constitutional law, the judicial process, law and society, and American political thought, among other topics. Students are impressed by her mastery of subject but equally impressed by her go-the-extra-mile dedication. 鈥淪he took teaching to a different level and really understands that it goes beyond the classroom,鈥� says one of her former students. 鈥淪he took time to get to know her students.鈥�

Her teaching philosophy is this: 鈥淣o one can be interested in everything but everyone can be interested in at least one thing in my courses. I try and help people find that one thing.鈥� In her Supreme Court and Constitution course, she focuses on constitutional law but also covers the history of judicial nominations, media coverage of federal courts and even the architecture of the Supreme Court building. She鈥檚 determined to spark curiosity one way or another. Along the way, it鈥檚 most important that students develop excellent writing, research and presentation skills to prepare them for careers. Students may not remember the specifics from her courses, and that鈥檚 OK, she says. She just needs to be sure they have learned good habits of thought.

On the other hand, some students do remember the specifics. An alumna who works for the City of Nashua wrote Siggelakis to tell her that what she learned in the administrative law course allowed her to correct city officials when they misinterpreted a new bedbug ordinance. 鈥淎 small thing to some,鈥� says Siggelakis, 鈥渂ut it meant a lot to me.鈥�

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