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Graduate Student Wins Teaching Award

A graduate student in the Department of Political Science earned UNC-Chapel Hill's highest recognition for teaching excellence in February.

Dustin Howes, a Ph.D. student, was one of just five graduate teaching assistants campus-wide to be awarded a Tanner Teaching Assistants' Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. The University Committee on Teaching Awards chose winners of the awards from nominations submitted by students and faculty members during the fall semester.

"I was really excited and gratified," Howes said about learning he had won the award. "The fact that students were motivated enough to write letters on my behalf says as much about them. I feel very fortunate to have had that kind of student in my classes."

The Spring 2002 semester is Howes' fourth time teaching Poli 81: Problems in World Order. Previously, he spent two semesters teaching POLI 86: Introduction to International Politics. Last year, Howes' teaching was recognized by the department when he received the 2001 John Patrick Hagen award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student.

Howes said he's grateful to the Department of Political Science for offering graduate students the flexibility to design and implement courses like Poli 81.

"Poli 81 is a kind of off the wall course in some ways, a mix of international relations, literature, philosophy and religion, but it seems to really strike a chord with students," he said. "My teaching for the most part is centered around the problem of violence in human life, so we deal with genocide, rape and warfare among other things. I'm taking the award as a sign that students at this university are concerned about such issues and are ready to engage these problems."

UNC-Chapel Hill offers awards in eight categories to recognize exemplary teaching at UNC. The Tanner awards, which reward the inspirational teaching of undergraduates, were established in 1952 through an endowment fund begun by Kenneth S. Tanner, class of 1911 and his sister, Sara Tanner Crawford in memory of their parents. The awards were expanded to include a category for teaching assistants in 1990. Each winner of a Tanner Teaching Assistant Award receives a one-time stipend of $1,000 and a framed citation.

More information about other University-wide teaching awards is available from UNC's News Services Web site.

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