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First teaching professors promoted

Indiana University Bloomington has promoted 20 faculty as part of its first cohort of teaching professors, the highest rank for lecturers. The Board of Trustees approved the new academic rank in 2019.

“These outstanding instructors bring excitement and innovation to campus and daily advance IU Bloomington’s core educational mission,” Interim Provost and Executive Vice President John Applegate said. “They are leaders in their fields, and their lifelong dedication to teaching and learning is exemplary, shaping generations of students and ensuring IU Bloomington’s commitment to academic excellence.”

Teaching professors must demonstrate a continued record of excellence in classroom teaching and pedagogical leadership. The rank creates a professional path for lecturers that parallels the tenure stream and clinical professional ranks.

“The core motivation for creating this rank was that we knew we have many people who’ve dedicated their careers to teaching excellence as lecturers and are improving teaching both in and outside of their classroom,” said Eliza Pavalko, vice provost for faculty and academic affairs and the Allen D. and Polly S. Grimshaw Professor of Sociology.

“Certainly they are amazing teachers and dedicated to their own students, but they also are improving the teaching and learning environment well beyond their own classrooms. This third rank was a way to both recognize and encourage their important contributions to IU’s teaching mission.”

A few of IU Bloomington’s first teaching professors shared what achieving the rank means to them.

Israel Fernando Herrera.  Israel F. Herrera

Herrera is a teaching professor and outreach coordinator and faculty advisor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese in the College of Arts and Sciences. He also served on several committees that helped craft the framework for teaching professors at IU.

“It’s a big career achievement, and a recognition that the teaching faculty is very important for the university,” Herrera said. “We want to have the same opportunities as colleagues with the same title and rank at other universities, and this opens up more opportunities for federal grants and presenting in conferences that are very competitive.”

Esther Ham. Esther Ham

Ham is a teaching professor of Dutch and Germanic studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.

“Promotion to the rank of teaching professor proves to me that IU not only values research and publication that bring standing and prestige, but it also recognizes the importance of the hard work of truly inspiring students by teaching with a passion to the highest standard of innovation,” Ham said.

Michael Morrone. Michael Morrone

Morrone is a teaching professor in the Kelley School of Business and the director of the Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching.

“The fact that IU is one of the few institutions that not only has the teaching professor rank, but also has FACET, when you put those two things together, it communicates how much we believe that teaching excellence is important for our students to succeed,” Morrone said. “And it aligns very well with President Whitten and the university’s commitment to student success.”

Jill Robinson Jill Robinson

Robinson is a teaching professor in the Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences.

“I feel like many of my colleagues didn’t know about a lot of the things I’ve been doing because it’s a large department,” Robinson said. “It’s nice to have a formal process to recognize work going on outside the department and university. The new teaching professor rank formally recognizes teaching as a career track and rewards those who have been doing scholarly work related to teaching.”

The other faculty promoted to teaching professor are:

  • Susan Hengeveld
  • Paul Graf
  • Ayelet Weiss
  • Lisa Thomassen
  • Virginia Hojas Carbonell
  • Jeannette Heidewald
  • Amy Kinser
  • Doug McCoy
  • Ann Bastianelli
  • Rex Cutshall
  • Kari Johnson
  • Constance Glen
  • Andrew Hollinden
  • Gulnisa Nazarova
  • Henry Wakhungu
  • Carol Kennedy-Armbruster