[Sci-tech-public] Siegel Teaching Prize winners

[David Kaiser]

Hi, all,

It is my great pleasure to let you know that the 2014-2015 Siegel Teaching Prize winners are Marie Burks and Mitali Thakor, who are both entering their sixth year as HASTS graduate students. The Siegel Teaching Prize was established seven years ago, to recognize graduate students who have excelled as instructors of MIT undergraduates.

The prize committee, Rosalind Williams and David Mindell, prepared the following prize citation:

"As is the procedure for this prize, Marie and Mitali were nominated by HASTS-related faculty members for notable contributions to the teaching of specific classes.  Marie was recommended for her work as a teaching assistant in 21H.134, “Medieval Economic History in Comparative Perspective.” This subject is far from her own research interests and experiences, and so it required exceptional preparation and creativity on Marie’s part to find ways to maximize her contribution to the class.

Mitali was nominated for her service as instructor in 21A.445, “Slavery and Human Trafficking in the 21st Century.”   For her, this assignment presented an almost opposite situation: Mitali was teaching a topic closely aligned with her own research, but as the lead instructor she had responsibility for the entire class, from developing the syllabus to submitting final grades.

In addition to the praise received by their nominators, students in these classes expressed their admiration for their graduate-student teachers.  One student wrote, “Marie made recitation (at 9:30am on a Friday!) really engaging and enjoyable. It was one of the best recitations I’ve ever had at MIT, in terms of how the group interacted and how much I got out of it.” A few excerpts from the comments made by one of the students in Mitali's class include, "I especially appreciated her lecture style, which promoted lots of class discussion/participation, something that I highly value in an anthropology course."  She continued, "In short, Professor [sic] Thakor has a clear and contagious passion for her subject, which extends to the classroom and organization of the course."

Marie and Mitali have each served as teaching assistants in three other subjects that vary markedly in format, content, and size.  Not just their very different roles in 21H.134 and 21A.445, but also their overall experience as teachers, demonstrate the particular challenges faced by HASTS students in MIT classrooms. HASTS-related faculty teach an enormous range of topics in three different departments; to assist them, our graduate students have to be exceptionally brave and flexible. Marie and Mitali have demonstrated that they are able to rise to that challenge."

Please join me in congratulating Marie and Mitali for this wonderful and much deserved honor. I am also grateful to Rosalind and David for serving on the prize committee.

best,
Dave

_____________________________
David Kaiser
Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science
and Professor of Physics
Department Head, Program in Science, Technology, & Society
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
dikaiser at mit.edu<mailto:dikaiser at mit.edu> 617 253-4062
http://web.mit.edu/dikaiser/www

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