The Signature Courses celebrate faculty engagement and inclusion with two awards: the Holleran Steiker Award for Creative Student Engagement and the Signature Course Inclusive Classroom Award.
View past recipients of the awards.
Holleran Steiker Award
The Holleran Steiker Award was created by the School of Undergraduate Studies to celebrate a Signature Course professor whose teaching creatively engages students in learning. The recipient of this award is, by definition, innovative and imaginative, challenging and inspirational. Professors who are given this honor deeply inspire their students as well as those in and beyond the UT Austin community.
Dr. Thomas Palaima – Spring 2022
College of Liberal Arts, Department of Classics
UGS 302: Bob Dylan and Social-Historical Imagination
Signature Course Inclusive Classroom Award
The university strongly supports inclusive teaching as represented by research and best practices. It is important to note that inclusive teaching and learning is a mindset, a way of thinking that asks you how best to create opportunities for all students to connect with you, the course material, and each other. When we consider our students’ intersecting identities, it can help connect your content to your learners, and also foster a sense of belonging among students, cultivate empathy, and promote resilience.
To support this effort, we awarded the Signature Course Inclusive Classroom Awards for the first time in the fall semester of 2020. Developed by members of the School of Undergraduate Studies Diversity & Inclusion Committee, along with support from the Signature Course Advisory Committee, this award was created to acknowledge the incredible work our instructors do in terms of promoting diversity and inclusion in their classrooms.
This award is not about the content of the course but how faculty teach their course and represent topics from across the full range of our Signature Courses. Criteria for the award are based on a.) the use of the Faculty Innovation Center’s inclusive classroom strategies and activities outlined here, b.) a short description from self-nominating faculty of how these implemented strategies positively impacted the students in their course(s), and c.) student survey feedback. Faculty members who complete a nomination agreed to have an anonymous survey sent to students enrolled in their fall 2021 Signature Course asking about course content, materials, and perspectives, as well as classroom interactions and discussion, and how those positively impacted the experiences of students in their course.
Fall 2021 Recipients of the Signature Course Inclusive Classroom Award
Paul Bonin-Rodriguez – College of Fine Arts
UGS 303: The Power of Story
Leticia Marteleto – College of Liberal Arts
UGS 302: Evidence-based Social Change
Lisa Moore – College of Liberal Arts
UGS 303: Survive and Thrive – LGBTQ at UT