Joanne Robinson from the Department of Religious Studies in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences is among the 17 recipients of the UNC Board of Governors Award for Teaching Excellence.
Award winners, nominated by each UNC system campus, were selected by the Board of Governors (BOG) Committee on Personnel and Tenure, chaired by John Fennebresque of Charlotte. The awards will be presented formally by a BOG member during the spring graduation ceremony on each campus. Each award winner receives a commemorative bronze medallion and a $7,500 cash prize.
Robinson was the 2012 recipient of the Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence, UNC Charlotte’s highest teaching honor.
Since joining the Religious Studies Department in 1996, Robinson has received a number of teaching-related awards and grants. In 2008, she received the B.E.S.T. (Building Educational Strengths and Talents) Award for Excellence in Teaching, and she became a University College Faculty Fellow in 2010-11. She also has received funding and recognition from the Wabash Center in Indiana and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
According to Robinson, the key to her success as a teacher is transparency; by ensuring that the goals and outcomes of the course are transparent, she establishes a classroom ethos of mutual respect and high expectation. She extends this engaged and collegial intellectual atmosphere beyond the classroom. Her students described weekly informal gatherings hosted by Robinson in which interested graduate and undergraduate students stop by her office for “playtime,” where they ask questions, discuss related issues and exchange ideas.
Established by the Board of Governors in 1994 to underscore the importance of teaching and to reward good teaching across the University, the BOG Awards for Excellence in Teaching are given annually to a tenured faculty member from each UNC campus. Winners must have taught at their present institutions at least seven years. No one may receive the award more than once.
Information on all of the award recipients is online.