At the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meeting on May 6, in an annual ritual, Dean Michael D. Smith conferred diverse honors on professors who have been recognized for outstanding teaching, advising, and mentoring—some chosen by the faculty itself, and some by students.
Harvard College Professorships, FAS’s highest award for distinguished undergraduate teaching and advising, confer that title for five years, plus supplemental funds in support of the faculty members’ research. This year’s honorands are:
- Mahzarin Banaji, Cabot professor of social ethics, a psychologist, who is also senior adviser to the dean on faculty development;
- David Cutler, Eckstein professor of applied economics, a health economist;
- Hopi Hoekstra, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology and molecular and cellular biology and Agassiz professor of zoology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology;
- Melissa McCormick, professor of Japanese art and culture; and
- Greg Morrisett, Cutting professor of computer science.
This year’s winners of the Roslyn Abramson Award, acknowledging junior faculty members for outstanding undergraduate teaching (they are chosen for “their ability to communicate with and inspire undergraduates, their accessibility to undergraduates, their sensitivity to undergraduates’ needs, and their devotion to teaching”), are:
- Arthur Spirling, Loeb associate professor of the social sciences, in the department of government; and
- Stacey Combes, associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology.
The Undergraduate Council conferred its Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prizes (which recognize superb teaching by members of the Harvard faculties who teach undergraduates) on Kiran Gajwani, a concentration adviser in economics; Justin Gest, a lecturer on government and lecturer on sociology; and Felipe Da Cruz ’15, an undergraduate teaching fellow.
The council conferred its John R. Marquand Prize for Exceptional Advising and Counseling of Harvard undergraduates on Lauren Brandt, Allston Burr Resident Dean of Leverett House; Marco Basile, a tutor in Lowell House; Christopher City, head coach of men’s and women’s Nordic skiing; and Dakota Santana-Grace ’16, a peer advising fellow in Matthews Hall.
Winners of the GSAS [Graduate School of Arts and Sciences] Graduate Student Council’s Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award, established to honor faculty members who go out of their way to offer support and guidance to graduate students’ research, education, professional and personal development, and career plans, are:
- Ann Blair, Lea professor of history;
- Arthur Kleinman, Rabb professor of anthropology and professor of medical anthropology;
- Anne Monius, professor of South Asian religions at Harvard Divinity School;
- Alexander Schier, Erikson life sciences professor of molecular and cellular biology;
- Kay Shelemay, Watts professor of music and professor of African and African American studies; and
- Daniel Smail, professor of history.
