Six winners of the university’s top prizes recognizing undergraduate teaching excellence — Jacqueline Goldsby, Andrew Johnston, Gilbert Joseph, Nikhil Padmanabhan, Frances Rosenbluth, and Angela Lee-Smith — were honored at a ceremony on May 1.
At the event, the teachers were praised, variously, for encouraging their students to be “boldly creative,” providing “an intellectual environment in which [they] can truly flourish,” guiding them on their academic and personal paths, “challenging and encouraging” them, bringing “radiant energy” to their classroom, being ‘tirelessly available’ to them, motivating them to think and analyze, and caring for them individually, among other talents and qualities.
To read the full article by Susan Gonzalez go to Yale News: http://news.yale.edu/2017/05/03/six-faculty-members-are-honored-undergraduate-teaching-excellence
Jacqueline Goldsby
The Sidonie Miskimin Clauss ’75 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities
“Jacqueline Goldsby, professor of English, of African American Studies and of American Studies, your students praise you for challenging and encouraging them, and for your ‘less conventional’ approaches to reading literature. Whether you are bringing your students to ‘the Beinecke to understand the Harlem Renaissance archives’ or ‘to [a] Brooklyn museum’ to view a ‘Mickalene Thomas exhibition to learn about Black women’s art,’ you ‘challenge [them] to broaden [their] thinking and engage with the text in ways [they] would have not otherwise considered.’ One student described your approach as ‘live analysis…. [W]e used our own experience as actors, theatergoers, artists, dancers, readers, and writers to approach the texts so that what may have been a completely new body of work (as it was to me) was accessible and relatable.’ Your students thank you for encouraging them ‘to be boldly creative, take risks, and be proud of their own scholarship.’ For your boundless enthusiasm and devotion to teaching, Yale College proudly awards the Sidonie Miskimin Clauss ‘75 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities to you, Jacqueline Goldsby.”