Ph.D. candidate presented 2014 Heberlein Award

Megan Petersen was presented the 2014 Garrett T. Heberlein Endowed Award by Provost Margaret Winters and President M. Roy Wilson during the University's Academic Recognition Ceremony.

She was joined by family, friends, fellow students and her advisor, Heather Dillaway, Ph.D. The award is for "Excellence in Teaching for Graduate Students." Provost Winters read the proclamation of the award which states as follows:

"Megan Petersen is truly an educator. Having started her teaching career as a K12 math and science teacher in metro Detroit, she knows classrooms - and students. The sociology department regards her as one of their "best" Ph.D. students in part because of her extraordinarily effective work teaching their upper-level methods course (4200). It is one of the department's more challenging courses for undergraduates, but essential in preparing them for their capstone course. this success follows her success in teaching Intro to Sociology. Her SETS scores were 13.5 and 14.1.

Her assignments creatively prompt students to engage what they know in mainstream media in order to further process course material. She understands that education writ large is a pathway to greater social equality and justice and, perhaps, most importantly, helps students explain their own life circumstances to themselves. Clearly, many appreciate her balance of rigor and compassion. As one student writes, "we wanted the A we had to earn in her course." Her students remarked regularly on her ability to guide them from the first day of class to the last with an engaging seriousness. This seriousness derives in part from her own attachment to scholarship. Like any good teacher, she knows her material well."