The award is considered UCLA’s highest recognition for teaching excellence
Citlalli Chávez-Nava
Two senate faculty members and one doctoral student from UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences were named recipients of UCLA’s prestigious 2024-2025 Distinguished Teaching Awards on June 26. The winners were selected for their creativity in the classroom, dedication to helping students thrive and commitment to continually enhancing the educational experience.
The awards, considered UCLA’s highest recognition for teaching excellence, honor recipients under three classifications: Senate faculty, non-Senate faculty and Teaching Assistants. Awardees (Senate and non-Senate) were nominated in one of four categories: The Practice of Teaching, Innovation and Impact, Community-Engaged Teaching and Undergraduate Mentorship. Additionally, five awards are designated for exceptional Teaching Assistants.
The awardees were chosen based on a range of criteria such as student success examples or metrics, feedback on the student experience, innovative teaching and curricular methods and instructor efforts to foster a learning environment where all students can thrive and support community outreach and mentoring activities. The awards also celebrate teaching excellence and educational innovation, helping to elevate the practice of teaching as highlighted in Goal 4 of UCLA’s Strategic Plan.
From a highly competitive pool of nominees, the Distinguished Teaching Award Selection Committee recognized the following recipients from UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences. Notably, this year, the nominating committee received nearly 50 nominations for the Distinguished Teaching Assistant awards, a record number for the honor. All award recipients will be recognized at the Andrea L. Rich Night to Honor Teaching, held during the fall 2025 quarter.
Senate Faculty Award Winners
Robin D.G. Kelley, Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History, UCLA Department of History
Practice of Teaching Award
A generous teacher and mentor, Robin D.G. Kelley stands out as an exceptional faculty member who has the rare ability to sustain a distinguished career as a research scholar and public intellectual, while also succeeding at challenging, encouraging and inspiring countless students to grapple with history.
Departmental colleagues and students alike describe his classroom as a laboratory of innovation, exploration and self-development and as a site of radical openness where students have been transformed into critical thinkers and passionate scholars.
Since joining UCLA over 15 years ago, Kelley has taught across all academic levels, routinely offering one of his two first-year lecture courses: “History of U.S. and its Colonial Origins: 20th Century,” and “Inequality: History of Neoliberalism,” to enormous enrollments. He offers a variety of mid-level courses covering African American and U.S. urban history and has also taught a variety of graduate seminars on 20th-century U.S. History. Kelley serves as an advisor to numerous doctoral students in UCLA’s Department of History, and other departments and schools, and even at other universities.
Given his popularity among UCLA’s student community, Kelley’s office often overflows with students who sit together in large groups to continue class discussions.
Jessica L. Collett, Professor, UCLA Department of Sociology
Practice of Teaching Award
Jessica L. Collett has profoundly enhanced the quality of education at UCLA since joining the Sociology Department in 2018, beginning with the creation of its flagship Introductory Sociology course within the UC Online program. Now in its eighth iteration, this General Education course attracts a diverse student population, including many pre-health and STEM students. The course effectively bridges disciplinary divides while introducing students to foundational concepts in social science and instilling a lasting sociological imagination.
Central to Collett’s practice of teaching is her compassionate and empowering approach that helps students confront challenging topics with courage and intellectual rigor. Students describe transformative experiences—from renewed motivation toward their career aspirations to enhanced proficiency in critical thinking, social empathy and real-world application of sociological insights, including in healthcare settings.
Her intentional and creative approach to learning activities include personalized journal assignments, flipped-classroom exercises, and playing (and examining) childhood board games in her senior seminar, “Socialization and the Life Course” and an experiential garden party in her lecture class, “Self and Society.” Students describe these activities as bringing sociological concepts to life and helping them develop deep connections to the material.
A testament to her commitment to teaching excellence, Collett served as Vice Chair of Undergraduate Education in Sociology from 2020-2024, helping shape teaching policy and practice at both the department and campus level. Collett is also involved in the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching (HET) program which uses self-reflection, student input and peer review to improve the way departments evaluate teaching and helps faculty implement excellent teaching practices.
Learn more about Jessica L. Collett’s courses and research interests.
Teaching Assistant Awardee
Lynette Dixon, PhD Candidate, UCLA Department of Gender Studies
Teaching Assistant Award
Lynette Dixon serves as her department’s Teaching Assistant Consultant —a position held by experienced graduate students who teach a department’s pedagogy courses known for their 495-level classification — imparts teaching and classroom facilitation skills to fellow graduate students.
Dixon’s teaching philosophy aims to leave no student behind and is deeply influenced by the work of Black feminist theorist bell hooks, and particularly by her books “Teaching Critical Thinking” and “Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom.” Dixon invites students to bring their whole selves into the classroom: their identities, their interests, concerns and questions, culture, knowledge and epistemologies and previous experiences.
Across varied courses and modes of teaching, Dixon’s evaluations are uniformly outstanding. In addition to the graduate pedagogy seminar, Dixon also teaches upper-division elective courses including: “Gender Studies 185: Cinematic Representations of Black Gender;” the core undergraduate course, “Gender Studies 102: Power;” and a large general education lecture course, “Gender Studies 10: Introduction to Gender Studies.”
Dixon utilizes Black feminist thought, performance theory, and hip-hop studies to explore the techniques of embodiment Black women in popular culture employ to navigate, contest and innovate performances of gender and sexuality.
Read the DTA campus announcement here. For more information about the Distinguished Teaching Awards, visit the Distinguished Teaching Awards website.