The Dean of the College of Letters & Science honors outstanding instructional academic staff for their excellence in teaching and mentoring undergraduate students.
We congratulate the 2026 award recipients!
Ritt Deitz, Distinguished Teaching Faculty, Department of French & Italian
Ritt Deitz is many unusual things: A commissioned Kentucky Colonel. A French Knight in the Order of Academic Palms. A novelist. A 26-year instructional team member in the Department of French & Italian. To his students, however, he’s simply one of the most impactful teachers under which they’ve ever had the delight to learn.
“Ritt stands out as a stellar pedagogue who fosters a safe, inclusive and intellectually stimulating classroom environment,” says Florence Vatan, professor of French and chair of the department. “A passionate advocate for liberal arts education and the Wisconsin Idea, he has developed a teaching style that inspires and empowers students, helping them gain confidence and a deeper sense of purpose. He encourages students to reflect on the value of their education and the positive contributions they can make to their communities and the world.”
Deitz teaches several signature classes in the department, including a newly created course on exploring Quebec and Montreal. His students adore his teaching style, which focuses on finding an array of ways to encourage participation and active learning above and beyond simply speaking up in class. He asks his students to compose handwritten letters and gives the ones who don’t feel comfortable speaking in front of a crowd the opportunity to leave observational notes about the class material. He often incorporates his love of music, film and literature into his curriculum, adding additional dimensions to the experience.
Both current and former students are inspired by his skills as a teacher. As a recent student put it, “For the first time in my life, I felt comfortable and confident presenting my end of the semester research project in front of my classmates.”
Jeanne Schueller, Teaching Professor, Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+
Jeanne Schueller, who directs the German Language Program and undergraduate studies for the Department of German, Nordic and Slavic+, brings an infectious enthusiasm to her craft that students can’t help but embrace. Over the course of her UW career, she has designed and taught several courses, including experimental offerings that focused on German graphic novels and German film and culture. She has also become the organizer of German Day, an outreach event that brings middle and high schoolers from across Wisconsin to the UW–Madison campus to celebrate German language and culture.
“Schueller has served as a model of outstanding and innovative teaching and curriculum development, mentorship of both undergraduates and graduate teaching assistants, and professionalism in all she does,” says David Danaher, professor and chair of GNS+. “She is highly respected in our department, at UW–Madison, in the State of Wisconsin, and nationally.”
Schueller also possesses a keen ability to connect with her charges. Katelyn Ottinger, a recent graduate who earned a certificate in German after taking a pair of courses with her, remembers the experience of asking Schueller for German book recommendations as a freshman.
“Not only did she give me recommendations, but she invited me back to her office to pick some books out,” Ottinger recalls. “She went out of her way to make herself available outside of class hours to help with my learning. She took extra time to talk with me and give me advice. This was a very meaningful experience, because I really understood how deeply she cared about my success with learning the language outside of grades and assignments.”
Cabell Gathman, Teaching Faculty, Department of Gender & Women’s Studies, Department of Sociology
Cabell Gathman begins the various courses she teaches by talking to her students about mistakes and failures, and how it’s what comes afterward that matters most. It’s the kind of understanding attitude and empathetic approach that gives her students the freedom to risk and be themselves as they navigate difficult issues of gender, sexuality and being. Nina Valeo Cooke, the Academic Program Director for the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies, describes Gathman as “an impactful and memorable instructor.”
Mary Giersch, a sophomore psychology major who took multiple courses from Gathman as a freshman, quickly noticed the effortless way in which she connects with her students, both in and out of the classroom.
“Gathman usually has many students waiting to speak to her in office hours, and while overhearing her interactions with students while waiting for my turn, I am always impressed by her unique ability to direct her comments and explanations to meet the specific context and needs of the student in front of her,” says Giersch. “It is clear to me that Dr. Gathman wants her students to succeed and get the most that they can out of her classes, and she carefully structures her classes and expertly employs interpersonal skills in her student interactions that contribute to their academic excellence and personal growth.”
That dedication continues. Gathman recently developed the curriculum for a new First-Year Interest Group course on the sociology of fans and fandom, set to begin in Fall 2026.
Joshua Weber, Course Coordinator, Department of Physics
Sometimes, the path to teaching excellence is swift and measured. Despite joining the instructional team in the Department of Physics just four short years ago, Joshua Weber has already made his mark, impressing both his colleagues and the students he teaches.
Weber is the course manager and primary instructor for Physics 201 and 202, the two-semester introductory courses taken by nearly 1,000 future engineering students. He has worked closely with his teaching assistants — the same teaching assistants who compete to work with him and whose classes he steps in to cover when they’re ill or indisposed — to adapt traditional physics labs into structured quantitative labs, in which students focus on building lab skills that allow them to “think like scientists” instead of just reproducing results they’ve seen in class. Weber views his role as an instructor as a facilitator, creating a welcoming environment that sparks collaborative learning.
He’s clearly winning the hearts and expanding the minds of his students. As one student recently shared with one of Weber’s TAs:
“Josh is really nice and a great instructor. He led my discussion section once, and I felt nervous, because I felt kind of rusty on the chapter we were working on. But he said, ‘I’m a lot more scared of you than you are of me’ kind of as a joke, and it set the tone for the class and didn’t make it feel like our big scary professor was going to run the discussion section and eat us alive for not being an expert on the material.”
Milbourne Family Excellence in Innovation in Teaching Award recipient
Sarah Edlund, Teaching Faculty, Department of Integrative Biology
The instructors who are charged with leading the College’s gateway/introductory courses have a unique and exciting opportunity/responsibility—they’re the ones who hold the potential to inspire career directions in a new generation of students.
It’s a responsibility that Sarah Edlund, who teaches Biology 151 and 152, the introductory courses for the biological sciences that most undergraduates in the College take to fulfil their science requirements, has taken seriously. Not content to stick to the established curriculum, Edlund had burnished both the labs and the learning experiences for her students, including developing a gamified food-web system for Lake Mendota to illustrate different types of conservation strategies to her students. It’s reflective of her desire that students build understanding through action and inquiry, not listening to lectures.
Edlund is also adept at recognizing problems and addressing them. One of the largest is the fact that student demand for Biology 152 typically outpaces its availability. Rather than continue to turn students away from a critical foundational course, Edlund has created an adapted summer curriculum that will address the disparity and offer even more opportunities for innovation.
“Without Sarah, this would not have happened,” says Mary Halloran, professor and chair of the Department of Integrative Biology.