Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching
The Walter J. Gores Award recognizes undergraduate and graduate teaching excellence. This year’s winners are Samer Al-Saber, Aditya Grover, Allyson Hobbs and Paul Nauert.
Allyson Hobbs, an associate professor of history in the School of Humanities and Sciences, was honored “for her tireless efforts to facilitate student engagement with the world through her wide range of life-changing courses on race and gender in contemporary American history.”
She was commended “for consistently making time for her students, who often left their meetings with a boost of confidence and a sense of direction.”
Hobbs was also honored “for promoting thoughtfulness, professional generosity and deep intellectual community building through her leadership and teaching” and “for being a wonderful mentor, a campus leader and an inspiring historian.”
Paul Nauert, a PhD candidate in history in the School of Humanities and Sciences who earned a master’s degree in history at Stanford in 2018, was honored “for bringing history alive through field trips, guest speakers and a blend of information technology, ethics and quantitative, big-data methods and a range of historic archives.”
He was commended “for his innovation in deploying a range of techniques to engage many learning styles beyond text and photos, including virtual reality exhibits and landscape and environmental data” and “for generously sharing his models and approaches with other graduate students and faculty.”
Nauert was also honored “for his sensitivity in communicating with students, ensuring students felt heard and respected.”