Seven Professors Honored by Academic Senate and Academic Federation

Associate Professor Kadee Ross was cited for how she improves public discourse and policy related to international trade. She served in the Obama administration as the senior economist for international trade and finance, Council of Economic Advisers, and she devotes considerable effort to educating the public on the costs of tariffs and policy uncertainty. She has published multiple pieces at the nonpartisan EconoFact and interacts extensively with the media, including PBS, CNBC, BBC, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal. In addition, she has testified in several California legislative committees to educate legislators on how tariffs and potential trade deals might impact California’s economy.

Professor Christyann Darwent was recognized for her outstanding ability to make the subject of archaeology personally meaningful to students. She incorporates popular culture, local events, hands-on material exploration and personal anecdotes into her lectures. Students also greatly appreciate her enthusiasm and sense of humor. Beyond the classroom, her dedicated mentoring enables students to learn how to curate museum collections or conduct fieldwork under difficult conditions in the Arctic. Under her mentorship, undergraduates have presented papers about their research at scientific conferences, published papers on their research, and moved on to museum jobs or graduate school.

Associate Professor Bettina Ng'weno has demonstrated a profound commitment to undergraduate teaching and student learning throughout the years. A kind and inquisitive teacher, she promotes intellectual curiosity in the classroom that goes beyond the limits of her syllabus. Students praise her for demanding critical thinking, comparative broad perspectives, and introspection about self-perceptions. She excels at explaining and presenting to her students the complex history of the African people and their diaspora around the world. Her approach to teaching is rigorous yet humorous and engaging. Finally, as a mentor, she genuinely lives the practices and beliefs she exemplifies when she teaches.

Professor James Adams was recognized for his exceptional efforts in the area of graduate teaching and mentorship. He is an extraordinary teacher, and his courses are among the most popular and highly enrolled in his department’s Ph.D. program. Moreover, he is a dedicated and highly engaged mentor, and graduate students routinely seek his advice. He publishes frequently with his students and helps them develop rich and productive research programs. He has an impressive record of placing his students in prestigious positions, and many of his former students comment on how he taps into his enormous network within the larger political science community for the benefit of his students.

Professor Pam Houston has been an inspirational teacher and mentor to generations of graduate students in the Creative Writing Program. Despite the demands of her own writing career — as a prolific author of critically-acclaimed novels, essays, short stories and autobiographical nonfiction — she has served on 103 master’s committees and been the primary advisor for 59 students. Many of her students have won prestigious awards for fiction and have published collections, novels and memoirs. One former student says that Professor Houston is “a teacher who truly loves to teach, and who finds joy in helping her students improve their writing and develop as thinking citizens of the world.”

Professor Rajiv Singh achieved outstanding accomplishments in graduate academic advising and research. He has a notable record of teaching excellence across a wide range of courses, including the introductory sequences for physical science, engineering and biological science majors as well as more than 50 graduate courses in the 30 years he has been teaching. Many students comment on his extensive knowledge, enthusiasm, teaching clarity and lecture organization. Even as a vice chair in his department, he chooses to maintain a full teaching load rather than take a teaching release — a clear example of his love for teaching and exemplary service to the physics department.

Both a continuing lecturer of the University Writing Program and a legal writing fellow at the School of Law, Lisa Klotz is the primary instructor for the UWP’s course on writing for the legal profession. She has created a foundational learning experience for undergraduate students interested in legal careers. Her experience as an attorney, extensive knowledge of legal writing practices, use of carefully structured assignments and individual mentorship of students ensures that students are not only successful in developing the writing skills required of her course, but that they are also well prepared to make informed decisions about pursuing careers in the legal profession.