English faculty member receives UGA Award for Excellence in Teaching

Nancee Reeves, senior lecturer in the department of English in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has received the 2023 University of Georgia Award for Excellence in Teaching.

The award was established in 2021 based on a recommendation from the UGA Teaching Academy. It recognizes teaching faculty who exemplify the university’s teaching mission by offering outstanding instruction, promoting innovation and providing an engaging environment for student learning.

“Dr. Reeves embodies the core values of the Award for Excellence in Teaching,” said S. Jack Hu, the university’s senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. “She cultivates student creativity and elevates the culture of academic excellence that distinguishes the University of Georgia as a leader in public higher education.”

Fostering student understanding is at the core of every class that Reeves teaches. Whether it’s Shakespeare, the 19th century British novel, fantasy literature or college writing, she structures her courses so that students walk away with transferable skills and the confidence that what they learned matters.

“Brilliantly designed, her classes simultaneously invite and push students to earn and claim their own critical and creative authority,” a former colleague wrote.

Reeves uses various types of multimedia to enrich her courses and help students make connections between course material and their own lives. In one of her service-learning writing courses, Reeves took her students to visit the Athens-Clarke County Animal Services where they each spent time caring for and writing a profile about one of the animals for the shelter’s adoption website.

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Image: Nancee Reeves in front of Park Hall. (Photo by Dorothy Kozlowski/UGA)