Professor Phillip Thurtle Awarded 2013 UW Distinguished Teaching Award

Submitted by Amy R. Peloff on

CHID is thrilled to announce that our Director Phillip Thurtle has been named a recipient of the UW's 2013 Distinguished Teaching Award. He is the third CHID faculty member to be honored in this way in recent years: Professor María Elena García won in 2012 and Senior Lecturer Anu Taranath won in 2010.

 As his students know, Professor Thurtle brings an inspiring and invigorating passion for his subject matter to his classrooms. To give you some insight into his teaching philosophy, we offer you a few of the strategies he incorporates into his courses:

Education should be an adventure. Students learn best when they are excited about what they learn and students always get excited about visiting new spaces. Travelling to new spaces challenges students to understand new experiences. In the Comparative History of Ideas (CHID) we literally and conceptually place students in new spaces.

Education should be preparative. Students learn best when they feel like they can take chances. This happens when students trust that their education is preparing them to undertake new challenges.

Education happens through research. Students studying at a top-tier research university possess the unique opportunity to work with scholars engaged in groundbreaking research. I’ve used this opportunity to help students appreciate how research is a valuable educational tool. Research projects, for instance, present students with the opportunity to find out about the world and then put their knowledge into action. Students get to experience the exhilaration of pushing beyond the limits of their knowledge.

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