The University of Colorado Boulder 2024 Best Should Teach Lecture and Awards Ceremony will celebrate excellence in education by recognizing outstanding CU Boulder faculty members, K-12 teachers and graduate student instructors with Best Should Teach Awards on May 2 at 6 p.m. in the University Memorial Center Glenn Miller Ballroom.
Free and open to the public, the event will feature Kevin Gannon, director of the Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence and professor of history at Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina. Gannon will deliver his keynote "Is It Time to Change Your Mind?" on how might we (re)connect with our agency, and use it to anchor our practices in an ethic of hope.
Kevin Gannon is the author of Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto (West Virginia University Press, 2020), and his writing has also appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Vox, CNN, and The Washington Post. In 2016, he appeared in the Oscar-nominated documentary 13th, directed by Ava DuVernay. He is currently co-editing a volume of essays on campuses in crisis, as well as writing a book on “Zombie Ideas” in higher education.
The event, co-hosted by the Center for Teaching and Learning, School of Education, and College of Arts and Sciences, will honor five CU Boulder faculty members, three K-12 teachers from the School of Education’s partner school districts and lead graduate teachers in the Graduate Teacher Program with Best Should Teach Gold and Silver Awards.
The 2023-2024 Best Should Teach Gold Award Recipients include:
Teacher honorees from partner school districts include:
The Best Should Teach awardees were selected for their embodiment of the beliefs, behaviors, and skills of exemplary teachers. The call for nominations for CU Boulder faculty also include nominations from students from all colleges and schools across campus.
The late, lifelong educator Lindley Stiles and his wife Marguerite Stiles established the Best Should Teach Initiative in 1996 to celebrate excellence in teaching, and Stiles’ inspiring motto is inscribed on the Lucile Berkeley Buchanan Building:
“To those who come, I leave the flame! Hold it as high as you can reach. If a better world is your aim, all must agree: The Best Should Teach.”