By Guy Spriggs

The UK Hispanic Studies Department is one of the most well-respected and highly-ranked programs in the country. As the 2011-2012 academic year came to a close, Hispanic Studies also added several teaching awards to its growing number of accolades.

But as Director of Elementary Language Instruction Yanira Paz points out, this high level of achievement is becoming the norm for Hispanic Studies.

“Our department has placed a lot of emphasis on teaching,” she explained. “We are happy for this recognition, but this is not new. We are a small group in the department, but it seems to me that we are doing things well.”

The Hispanic Studies Department earned a total of 5 recognitions, including 2 Provost Teaching Awards, 2 College of Arts & Sciences Teaching Awards and an Alumni Association Great Teacher Award. The awards went to senior lecturer Irene Chico-Wyatt, associate professor Yanira Paz and professor Ana Rueda, as well as graduate students Mahan Ellison and Sarah Finley.

The breadth of these awards should not be overlooked: in fact, Finley suggests that they reveal one of the main factors of the program’s continued success.

“If you look at the award winners, we’re talking about going up and down the whole ladder from the chair of our department to graduate students like me,” Finley said. “As teaching assistants, we are called upon to be good students and good teachers. We have excellent mentors.”

The success of the teachers in the Hispanic Studies Department is a result of what Paz and Chico-Wyatt refer to as a “humanistic” approach to education. These award-winning teachers pride themselves on embracing the dynamic nature of the classroom and seeing their students as human beings first.

“I try to see the person that is there, try to understand his or her greatness and also their limitations,” Paz said. Similarly, Chico-Wyatt suggested that her goal is not only to help students learn the material but to teach them to be “good citizens in the classroom.”

“I don’t want to be a professor who thinks that they know everything there is to know and that their students don’t meet their expectations. Some people say being friendly doesn’t work, but that’s the way I like it,” she continued.

This approach not only creates productive relationships with undergraduates but informs the supportive environment that graduate students like Ellison and Finley credit with their success in the classroom. This collaborative spirit makes them better teachers and, by extension, improves the experiences and outcomes of their students.

“We have good support from the faculty, and in turn, we then mirror that support to the undergraduate students,” Finley explained.

“We treat our students the way we’re treated by our professors in the department,” Ellison added. “Our graduate class professors serve as role models for how we interact with our students.”

All of the award winners in the Hispanic Studies Department accepted their recognitions with excitement and humility, and placed the highest value on being nominated by peers and professors.

“It’s an honor to be recognized by the Provost, but what is much more personal is the support I’ve gotten from professors in the department who believe in what I do enough to nominate me for these things,” Ellison said.

These professors and teaching assistants are playing a vital role in creating a legacy of award-winning instruction in the Hispanic Studies Department.

“There are a lot of really good teachers in this department,” Ellison explained. “Last year several people received awards, and that inventiveness in teaching just feeds off of itself. I hope that it continues to be the type of environment that the Hispanic Studies Department develops.”

“Teaching is part of our reputation, and I have insisted all these years about having top teachers in our classrooms,” Paz added. “We believe in the mission of teaching, and we want to keep our reputation of what we have so far.”