The College of Humanities & Fine Arts (HFA) has announced its 2024 College Outstanding Teaching Award recipients: Asheesh Kapur Siddique, assistant professor of history, and Ruth Jennison, associate professor of English. The College Outstanding Teaching Award is given annually within HFA to professors who have made significant contributions to undergraduate student education.
“UMass [students] are the finest I have ever taught. The opportunity to work with such talented, dynamic, and curious learners at UMass has been the greatest experience and privilege of my career.”
Siddique is a historian of early America, early modern Europe, and the British empire whose research and pedagogy explores the role of collecting, managing, and using knowledge to the history of state formation and governance.
His students overwhelmingly describe him as a dynamic, passionate and effective teacher whose well-organized courses, meaningful assignments, and engaging storytelling support them in learning complex histories, developing their critical thinking skills and fostering a passion for history. Students also speak effusively of his thoughtfulness and care, describing him as a faculty member who gives generously of his time out of class to clarify materials and support students.
His enduring respect for students is evident in Siddique’s own reflections on teaching. He writes, “Having taught at two major private research universities (Columbia University and the University of Southern California) and a major flagship public research university (Pennsylvania State University), I can state confidently and without reservation that the undergraduate and graduate students at UMass are the finest I have ever taught. The opportunity to work with such talented, dynamic, and curious learners at UMass has been the greatest experience and privilege of my career.”
He earned his doctoral degree at Columbia University, a master’s degree from the University of Oxford, and a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University. His research has been supported by institutions such as the American Philosophical Society, the Huntington Library, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, and the Social Science Research Council.
Siddique was selected as a 2016-18 Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Southern California as well as the 2018-19 Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Humanities & Information at Penn State University.
College Outstanding Teaching Award recipients are celebrated for exceptional teaching, mentoring, and curriculum development efforts, and for their impact on students' lives. Each award consists of a $1,000 prize and a commemorative plaque.