UMass historian Elizabeth Jacob was selected by the Center for Teaching and Learning as one of eight Lilly Fellows for Teaching Excellence. Established in 1986, the Lilly Fellowship for Teaching Excellence enables promising early-career faculty to cultivate teaching skills and leadership in a special yearlong collaboration.
Jacob studies modern West Africa with a focus on gender, family, and politics in Côte d’Ivoire. She joined the UMass Amherst Department of History in 2023 and teaches on African history from 1500 to the present, modern West Africa, gender and sexuality in African history, African decolonizations, French-African relations, and global feminisms.
On receiving the Lilly Fellowship, Jacob remarked, “It’s an honor to be selected as a Lilly Fellow for the 2026-27 academic year. I’m looking forward to taking time to pause, reflect, and develop my teaching in an interdisciplinary community of early-career scholars.”
During the fellowship year, Jacob and her cohort of fellows will attend regular seminars on pedagogy, develop a new course or substantially redesign an existing one, complete a teaching portfolio that includes teaching reflections and activities adapted to the course, and work collaboratively to anticipate many of the challenges and rewards of faculty life at UMass Amherst. Lilly Fellows will also share their growing expertise with colleagues at the departmental, school/college, and/or campus-wide levels to ensure that the benefits of this premier program reach and support the greater UMass Amherst teaching community.