Three excellent educators have been named MacVicar School Fellows: affiliate professor in comparative media research/writing Paloma Duong, affiliate professor of economics Frank Schilbach, and affiliate professor of city research and planning Justin Steil.
For greater than 30 years, the MacVicar School Fellows Program has acknowledged exemplary and sustained contributions to undergraduate schooling at MIT. This system is called in honor of Margaret MacVicar, MIT’s first dean for undergraduate schooling and founding father of the Undergraduate Analysis Alternatives Program. Fellows are chosen by a extremely aggressive, annual nomination course of. The MIT Registrar’s Workplace coordinates and administers the award on behalf of the Workplace of the Vice Chancellor; nominations are reviewed by an advisory committee, and last choices are made by the provost.
Paloma Duong: Equipping college students with a holistic, world worldview
Paloma Duong is the Ford Worldwide Profession Growth Affiliate Professor of Latin American and Media Research. Her work has helped to reinvigorate Latin American topic choices, improve the variety of Spanish minors, and construct group on the Institute.
Duong brings an interdisciplinary perspective to educating Latin American tradition in dialogue with media idea and political philosophy within the Comparative Media Research/Writing (CMS/W) program. Her strategy is constructed on a basis of respect for every scholar’s distinctive tutorial journey and underscores the significance of caring for the entire scholar, honoring the place they will go as intellectuals, and connecting them to a world greater than themselves.
Senior Alex Wardle says that Professor Duong “broadened my worldview and made me extra receptive to new ideas and concepts … her class has deepened my crucial considering abilities in a manner that only a few different courses at MIT have even tried to.”
Duong’s Spanish language courses and seminars incorporate a variety of practices — together with cultural analyses, artifacts, visitor audio system, and hands-on multimedia tasks — to assist college students interact with the fabric, suppose critically, and problem preconceived notions whereas studying about Latin American historical past. CMS/W head and professor of science writing Seth Mnookin notes, “college students turn out to be conversant with region-specific vocabularies, worldviews, and challenges.” This strategy makes college students really feel “deeply revered” and treats them as “studying companions — interlocutors in their very own proper,” observes Bruno Perreau, the Cynthia L. Reed Professor of French Research and Language.
Exterior the classroom, Duong takes the time to mentor and get to know college students by supporting and attending applications linked to MIT Cubanos, Cena a las Seis, and World Well being Alliance. She additionally serves as an advisor for comparative media research and Spanish majors, is the undergraduate officer for CMS/W, and is a member of the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Training Advisory Committee and the Committee on Curricula.
“Topic areas like Spanish and Latin American Research play an vital function at MIT,” writes T.L. Taylor, professor in comparative media research/writing and MacVicar School Fellow. “College students discover a sense of group and help in these areas, one thing that needs to be on the coronary heart of our consideration greater than ever as of late. We’re fortunate to have such a dynamic and engaged educator like Professor Duong.”
On receiving this award, Duong says, “I’m positively elated! I’m very grateful to my college students and colleagues for the nomination and am honored to turn out to be a part of such a exceptional group of fellow lecturers and mentors. Educating undergraduates at MIT is at all times a good looking problem and an infinite supply of studying; I really feel tremendous fortunate to be on this place.”
Frank Schilbach: Bringing power and pleasure to the curriculum
Frank Schilbach is an affiliate professor within the Division of Economics. His connection and dedication to undergraduates, mixed together with his efforts in speaking the significance of economics as a area of examine, have been key parts within the revitalization of Course 14.
When Schilbach arrived at MIT in 2015, there have been solely three sophomore economics majors. “A much less dedicated trainer would have in all probability simply taken it as a given and bought on with their analysis,” writes professor of economics Abhijit Banerjee. “Frank, as a substitute, took it as a problem … his affected person efforts in convincing college students that they should make economics part of their normal schooling was a key cause why improvements [to broaden the major] succeeded. The division now has greater than 40 sophomores.”
Along with bolstering enrollment, Schilbach had a hand in curricular enhancements. Amongst them, he created a “subsequent step” for college kids finishing class 14.01 (Rules of Microeconomics) with a revised class 14.13 (Psychology and Economics) that goes past traditional subjects in behavioral economics to discover hyperlinks with poverty, psychological well being, happiness, and id.
Much more vital is the considerate and inclusive strategy to educating that Schilbach brings. “He’s thoughtful and cautious, listening to everybody, explaining ideas whereas making college students perceive that we care about them … it’s only a pleasure to see how the scholars revel within the actions and the training,” writes Esther Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Growth Economics. Erin Grela ’20 notes, “Professor Schilbach goes above and past to solicit scholar suggestions in order that he could make real-time adjustments to make sure that his courses are serving his college students as finest they will.”
His impacts lengthen past MIT as nicely. Professor of economics David Atkin writes: “Many of those college students are impressed by their work with Frank to proceed their research on the graduate degree, with an unimaginable 29 of his college students occurring to PhD research at most of the finest applications within the nation. For somebody who has solely lately been promoted to a tenured professor, this can be a exceptional file of advising.”
“I’m delighted to be chosen as a MacVicar Fellow,” says Schilbach. “I’m thrilled that college students discover my programs invaluable, and it brings me nice pleasure to suppose that my educating could assist some college students enhance their well-being and encourage them to make use of their unimaginable abilities to higher the lives of others.”
Justin Steil: Experiential studying meets public service
“I’m honored to affix the MacVicar School Fellows,” writes affiliate professor of regulation and concrete planning Justin Steil. “I’m deeply grateful to have the possibility to show and be taught with such hard-working and inventive college students who’re smitten by collaborating to find new data and remedy arduous issues, within the classroom and past.”
Professor Steil makes use of his background as a lawyer, a sociologist, and an city planner to mix experiential studying with alternatives for public service. In school 11.469 (City Sociology in Principle and Observe), he connects college students with incarcerated people to look at inequality at one of many state’s largest prisons, MCI Norfolk. In one other undergraduate seminar, college students meet with leaders of native teams like GreenRoots in Chelsea, Massachusetts; Alternate options for Neighborhood and Atmosphere in Roxbury, Massachusetts; and the Dudley Road Neighborhood Initiative in Roxbury to work on city environmental hazards. Ford Professor of City Design and Planning and MacVicar School Fellow Lawrence Vale calls Steil’s courses “life-altering.”
Along with educating, Steil can also be a paramedic and has volunteered as an EMT for MIT Emergency Medical Service (EMS), the place he continues to rework routine actions into teachable moments. “There are quite a few alternatives at MIT to obtain mentorship and carry out analysis. Justin went past that. My conversations with Justin have impressed me to go to graduate faculty to analysis medical units within the EMS context,” says Abigail Schipper ’24.
“Justin is actually dedicated to the entire schooling of our undergraduate college students in ways in which meaningfully serve the broader MIT group in addition to the residents of Cambridge and Boston,” says Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Organic Engineering Katharina Ribbeck. Miho Mazereeuw, affiliate professor of structure and urbanism and director of the City Threat Lab, concurs: “by his educating, advising, mentoring, and connections with community-based organizations and public businesses, Justin has knit collectively numerous threads right into a coherent undergraduate expertise.”
Pupil testimonials additionally spotlight Steil’s potential to make every scholar really feel particular by delivering undivided consideration and individualized mentorship. A former scholar writes: “I used to be so grateful to have met an teacher who believed in his college students so earnestly … regardless of being one of many busiest individuals I’ve ever recognized, [he] … unerringly made the scholars he works with really feel sure that he at all times has time for them.”
Since becoming a member of MIT in 2015, Steil has acquired a Dedicated to Caring award in 2018; the Harold E. Edgerton Award for distinctive contributions in analysis, educating, and repair in 2021; and a First Yr Advising Award from the Workplace of the First Yr in 2022.
Be taught extra concerning the MacVicar School Fellows Program on the Registrar’s Workplace web site.
