Distinguished Teaching Awards
Abigail De Kosnik, director of the Berkeley Center for New Media, and Joshua Hug (Ph.D.’11 EECS), associate teaching professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, are among this year’s recipients of UC Berkeley’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the campus’s most prestigious honor for teaching. The award, first given in 1957, recognizes teaching that incites intellectual curiosity, engages students in learning and has a lifelong impact.
“I believe that people learn most by doing and speaking, not listening to someone else. When students speak and enact their own ideas about the concepts and texts I put in front of them, then they are the experts — and I’ve done my job as their teacher,” said De Kosnik.
Hug said that although he presents highly technical subjects in CS 61B, it is “never enough to teach technical concepts.” Part of his teaching philosophy is “devoted to building solid ethical foundations for students,” supporting them as they “embark on intense internal journeys” that can be “transformative” and “emotional.”
