2024–25 College Outstanding Teaching Award Recipients
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The College of Humanities and Fine Arts is delighted to announce the 2024–25 recipients of the College Outstanding Teaching Award (COTA):
- Professor Diana Sierra Becerra, Department of History
- Professor Shannon LaFayette Hogue, Department of Classics
- Professor Jimmy Worthy, Department of English
Presented annually, the College Outstanding Teaching Award recognizes faculty members who have made significant contributions to undergraduate education. Recipients are honored for their exceptional teaching, mentoring, and curriculum development, and for the meaningful impact they have on students’ academic and personal growth.
Professor Diana Sierra Becerra is a historian of women and gender in Latin America. Her teaching focuses on social and political movements throughout the region, encouraging students to understand these histories as mechanisms to address modern-day injustice. She also appreciates that one of the most important resources for any class are the other students within it. One former student said of her experience, “This [class] fostered some of the most meaningful conversations and connections with my classmates.” Sierra Becerra’s classroom is one without walls or boundaries — a place of intellectual exploration and enduring fellowship.
Professor Shannon LaFayette Hogue is a professor of Mediterranean archaeology with a focus on the Aegean Bronze Age. She teaches courses on the archaeology and material world of the eastern Mediterranean as well as Ancient Greek language and literature. Her students describe her classes as “thrilling” and “dynamic,” which comes as no surprise as she also takes students every year to her archaeological project on the Greek island of Kea. There and in her classrooms at UMass Amherst, Hogue’s students don’t only learn about the people of the ancient world — they are actively engaged in expanding the boundaries of our knowledge of the past.
Professor Jimmy Worthy teaches the literature of the African diaspora. In the classroom, he challenges students to “cultivate a speculative condition of the mind.” Worthy understands this is the essential first step to using language not merely to describe the world we find, but to change it into that we might imagine it to be. This is no easy task. Worthy’s rigorous expectations and high standards inform his classroom. But his students rise to the challenge because they know Worthy is committed to them, praising him for his “engagement, kindness, and relatability.” Through Worthy’s joyous appreciation and thrilling commentary of his texts, students discover within themselves a potential for revelation with every turn of the page.
Each of these faculty members represents the very best of our shared mission to teach and to learn. Their dedication to our students, their willingness to innovate within and beyond the classroom, and the skill with which they approach and share their subjects — all are brilliant examples of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts’ commitment to excellence.