2020 King's Awards for Excellence in Teaching announced

King’s University College is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 Awards for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Graham Broad is honoured for Full-Time Faculty and Dr. Vidya Natarajan is honoured for Part-Time Faculty. They were selected by a committee of students, faculty and staff which reviewed dozens of nominations from the King’s community. “We are always seeking opportunities to celebrate the accomplishments of the King’s community, especially when it comes to those who influence the experience and education of our students. Dr. Broad and Dr. Natarajan have made amazing contributions to King’s and, on behalf of the Selection Committee, I would like to thank them for these accomplishments and the impact they have made on their students and King’s as a whole,” says Marilyn Mason, Vice-Principal, Enrolment Services and Strategic Partnerships.

The recipient for Full-Time Faculty is Dr. Graham Broad, Associate Professor in History.

Dr. Broad has taught at King’s since 2005, joining the Full-Time Faculty in 2009. He helped design and he taught in the Foundations in the Humanities program, including History 4710: the World Wars in History and Memory. At King’s he teaches students in all years and most recently he co-developed King’s first experiential-learning History course, World Wars in History, Memory, and Reconciliation, which was to tour Belgium and France this spring as recipients of the Juno Beach Fellowship.

Dr. Broad is the co-director of Wartime Canada and the author of A Small Price to Pay: Consumer Culture on the Canadian Home Front 1939-1945 (UBC Press, 2013, shortlisted for the CP Stacey Award) and One in a Thousand: the Life and Death of Captain Eddie McKay Royal Flying Corps (UTP Press, 2017). He co-authoured (with Matthew Rankin) Canada: A Country of Change (Winnipeg: Portage and Main Press, 2008). It was also published as Le Canada, un pays de changements – de 1867 à nos jours, translated by Michel Arsenault (2009).

“It is a tremendous honour to be the recipient of the King's Award for Excellence in Teaching. King's has a well-deserved reputation as one of Canada's finest liberal arts institutions, and I have drawn inspiration from my many excellent colleagues, especially in the Department of History, who are role models of engaged teachers. But above all, I want to thank my students — it's no exaggeration to say that, over the past decade, I have learned at least as much from them as they have from me,” says Dr. Broad.

Dr. Sauro Camiletti, Vice Principal and Academic Dean, says that Dr. Broad’s students describe him as “marvellously capable at giving lectures that are informing and engaging, as passionate about history, impactful, caring, funny, inspiring, consistently available, highly skilled, innovative and brilliantly exemplifying the scholarly and instructional excellence of King’s” and that he is highly regarded by his colleagues, Department chairs and former students.

“Dr. Graham Broad’s philosophy of teaching is animated by a longing for truth, a contemplation of aesthetic beauty and the cultivation of moral character in concert with the Catholic intellectual tradition. He sees education in the arts and humanities as promoting empathy and mutual understanding and forming a basis for an informed world view,” adds Dr. Camiletti.

In addition to the Excellence in Teaching Award, Dr. Broad will be invited to present the Annual Christopher Perrin Beatty Lecture, which takes place during the Student Awards Ceremony evening each winter, along with a stipend. This important lecture was established by the Beatty family to honour the memory of their son Christopher Beatty, a 2007 alumnus who passed away in 2008 at the age of 23. 

The recipient for Part-Time Faculty is Dr. Vidya Natarajan, Writing Program Coordinator.

Dr. Natarajan has been a Professor of English Literature and Writing at King’s University College since 2004, and Coordinator of the Writing Program at King’s University College since 2017. She oversees tutoring at The Write Place and coordinates the delivery of Writing courses. Over the last three years, Dr. Natarajan has redesigned and taught first-year Writing courses, recently creating and teaching Writing 2301F (Tutoring Writers) and Writing 2208G (Teaching Writing), both of which can be used towards the new Certificate in the Teaching and Practice of Writing.  

“Her students describe her as amazing, fascinating, wonderful, unforgettable, inspiring and genuinely brilliant, bright, humble, professional, warm hearted, a master teacher, and the best professor they have ever had,” reports Dr. Camiletti.

“Dr. Natarajan’s ‘classroom’ at King’s is multiple and multivalent. It is a mobile set of ideas and practices that can be found everywhere at King’s and from which everyone benefits. This ‘classroom’ is attuned to active and experiential learning in the best sense of those sometimes over-used terms, and to the transformative power of creativity for our students and colleagues,” says Dr. Krista Lysack,  Chair for the Department of English, French, and Writing.

“I see this award as recognizing the importance of writing as a foundational academic skill, and the spirit of collaboration between students, faculty, and administration that fuels the Writing program at King's," says Dr. Natarajan.

Congratulations to Dr. Broad and Dr. Natarajan.

For more information, and to see a list of previous recipients, please visit https://www.kings.uwo.ca/academics/award-of-excellence-in-teaching/.