Kate Kelp-Stebbins, assistant professor of English, is the 2022 Tykeson Teaching Award recipient for excellence in teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences humanities division. She is a CSWS faculty affiliate.
From Around the O—Each year the Tykeson awards follow a theme, and this year’s awards are based on teachers who have demonstrated excellence in inclusive teaching. The conditions and obstacles students face during their academic journeys, including a disparity in academic outcomes between lower-income students, students of color, and nonnative English-speaking students, is known as the opportunity gap.
When choosing faculty members to receive this year’s award, deans rewarded efforts to close the academic opportunity gap for first-year, core education and major courses; to close the access gap to experiential learning opportunities; to introduce curricular innovation supporting inclusion and representation, and to use advising practices supporting inclusion and equity
“Students say that Kate Kelp-Stebbins, or ‘Dr. K,’ always treats them as collaborators and sources of experience and expertise, and that she has given them exceptional opportunities to help shape exhibitions and symposia, create their own work, and determine how the class functions as a respectful and inclusive community,” said Harry Wonham, divisional dean for the humanities.
Wonham went on to commend Kelp-Stebbins for her series of imaginative and impressive teaching methods within the comic studies department and pointed to the brilliant student comics that have been produced in her classes over the past few years.
“It’s a tremendous honor, and it’s really humbling to receive this award,” Kelp-Stebbins said. “It means so much right now. I know how much my students and I have been challenged by everything that's going on in terms of COVID and the war. This award meant more right now than I can really articulate. It feels like a testament to how much we've been through and to the ways in which we're together to get through it all.”