Professor: Shelley Velleman, PhD, CCC-SLP
Shelley Velleman is a professor and the chair of Communication Sciences and Disorders in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. She endeavors to develop teaching approaches that will make learning into a transformational adventure. She continually experiments with new ways of bringing her courses into real-life contexts. A recent innovation in simulations for evaluating the same children at different ages increased student collaboration and considered both the parent point of view and the child within the family and preschool environments as part of the case analysis. The results were deeply revealing regarding the weight of data and diagnoses within the context of family-centered care.
Professor Velleman’s continually evolving style as a master teacher is recognized by her students, who appreciate her many requests for feedback throughout the semester and the stimulating ways she incorporates that feedback. Undergraduate and graduate students alike praise her gifted teaching and the creative ways she brings concepts to life using visuals, analogies and real-life stories to inspire her students. More information
Associate Professor: Illyse Morgenstein Fuerst, PhD, MTS
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst is an associate professor of Religion in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her contextual teaching philosophy invites students to think about religion within a wide historic and cultural framework, introducing students to the scholarly canon as well as alternative thinkers and marginalized voices. With expertise in Islam, South Asia, and the history of religion, she has developed and taught courses on a wide range of topics, including Islam, modernity, theory and method in religion, Hindu traditions, race and empire.
With strong attention on skills-based learning, she developed a Reading Notes assignment that several colleagues have adapted for their own courses. Innovative research, writing and presentation assignments challenge students to hone critical research and thinking skills and build portfolios to take into the job market or graduate school. Students describe her as “super engaging” — enthusiastic, charismatic, and funny while being very professional; a joy to learn from. More information
Assistant Professor: Ingrid Nelson, PhD, MPhil
Ingrid Nelson is an assistant professor of Geography in the College of Arts and Sciences. An exemplary teacher-scholar, her teaching dossier spans a wide range of topical material and draws in students from an array of disciplines. Applying questions of politics and ecology to geography, she encourages students to explore spaces as diverse as rural communities in Mozambique, college campuses in the U.S., the human body and other geographies relevant to students’ lives. Her approach inspires students to interact with the subject and with one another in a way that teaches them how to do political ecology research, rather than passively understanding it as a discipline.
She has enriched the curriculum of Geography, Environmental Studies, African Studies, Global Studies, and Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies. Students praise her excellent instruction and mentorship, creative coursework, well-designed writing and research assignments, and the extensive individualized and constructive feedback she gives to every student on every assignment. More information
Senior Lecturer: Kelly Hamshaw, MS
Kelly Hamshaw is a senior lecturer in Community Development and Applied Economics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Her teaching philosophy facilitates student success by fostering an active learning atmosphere, focusing on essential skills, and learning by doing. Employing strategies that encourage students to interact with peers in small groups, she provides pathways for even the most reticent students to engage.
Through service-learning courses she provides an avenue for students to develop professional competencies by applying theory and skills gained in the classroom to real-world issues. In upper-level service-learning courses she has developed several successful ongoing partnerships, merging student focus and interest with organizational expertise to work on community priorities and meet community needs. Drawing on essential community development theory and practice, she engages students and advisees in ways that give insight into the whole student, inquiring about their motivations, interests, and capacities and working together to create an action plan toward their goals. More information
More information about the Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Awards.