By Nikki Babri
In recognition of their excellence in undergraduate teaching, Tagert Ellis and Megan Cole have received 2024 UC Irvine Celebration of Teaching awards. These competitive campus-wide honors, based on nominations from peers, colleagues and students, celebrate educators who have made exceptional contributions to undergraduate education and fostered inclusive, engaging learning environments.
Lecturer of the year
Tagert Ellis has been named Lecturer of the Year at UCI. This honor recognizes Ellis’s exceptional teaching methods that positively impact diverse student populations.
“Classroom teaching is an enormous pleasure,” Ellis reflects. “This award is not only an honor but also a meaningful acknowledgment that my methods are working and are genuinely improving students’ lives.”
Ellis’s connection to UCI spans nearly two decades, beginning as an English undergraduate in 2005 and evolving through his MFA in fiction writing to his current role as a lecturer in English and composition.
In this time, Ellis has made significant contributions to UCI’s writing programs. He has taught each class in the composition series, mentored new teachers, performed campus writing placement work and authored chapters for the department textbook, The Anteater’s Guide to Writing and Rhetoric. Recently, he collaborated on a UC-wide Innovative Learning Technology Initiative (ILTI) grant to develop gamified modules for teaching rhetorical principles and served on a committee addressing policy and pedagogical approaches to generative AI tools.
Ellis’s teaching pedagogy foregrounds student engagement. “It is extremely important to me that all of my students feel safe and heard and comfortable, and understand that they are genuine participants in the life of the academy,” he shares. His approach blends empathy with creativity, incorporating music and gamification to motivate students.
In his courses, Ellis developed a gamification system where students earn badges that mimic video game achievements for completing academic tasks. This innovative method encourages students to pursue academic “bonus” tasks strongly correlated with achievement, such as attending office hours or performing deep revisions. Along with increasing student participation, the system allows Ellis to track and analyze how these activities correlate with overall course performance.
Ellis draws inspiration from his father’s career as a film director and manages his classroom with a combination of kindness, humor, inclusion and understanding. This approach creates a comfortable and empowering environment where students feel confident to push beyond their perceived limits. Ellis believes this ethos is key to helping students surpass standards and achieve excellence, aiming for them to leave each class feeling more capable than when they entered.
Looking ahead, Ellis remains committed to growth and adaptation in the classroom. “I want to meet new generations of students and hand them the tools they need to live successful lives in an increasingly complicated and fraught information ecosystem,” he says. “If I can teach them along the way that life is meant to be fun and kind of ridiculous, and if I can help them grow in their capacity for empathy, I will be satisfied that I have done my job.”
Most promising future faculty
Megan Cole, who received her Ph.D. in English from UCI in June, received the Most Promising Future Faculty Award. This recognition celebrates graduate students who have demonstrated excellence in teaching, research and service.
“Being recognized for my impact in the classroom – and on campus in general – means the world to me,” Cole shares. “It signifies that I’ve made a difference in my students’ lives, and that my colleagues value my work as both a teacher and a scholar. That’s really all I could ever ask for as an aspiring member of the professoriate.”
As a UCI bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral alumna herself, Cole’s connection to the university runs deep. Throughout her academic career, she has been recognized with over 30 prestigious fellowships and awards, including the University of California President’s Dissertation Year Fellowship and the UCI Lauds and Laurels Outstanding Graduate Student Award.
Cole’s multifaceted academic career encompasses teaching, research and communications across various institutions. Her research interests lie in American literature, ecocriticism and environmental humanities. At UCI and Irvine Valley College, she’s taught a variety of writing and literary journalism courses, while also engaging in interdisciplinary collaborations, such as working with STEM professors on the role of the arts and humanities in climate change mitigation.
Her close involvement with UCI’s Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation (DTEI) has been instrumental in shaping her approach to education. “I’ve been invested in making my classes more equitable, engaging and accessible ever since I started teaching back in 2018,” Cole explains. Her efforts include leading TA Professional Development Programs, co-facilitating the Summer Graduate Scholars Program, mentoring dozens of students and helping faculty members redesign courses to incorporate principles of diversity, equity and inclusion.
One of Cole’s most memorable teaching experiences came during the fall of 2020, when she taught her first class at UCI entirely online. Despite the challenges of virtual instruction, the class formed a tight-knit community, exploring how stories connect people across distances. Many of those students have since pursued writing careers, maintaining contact with Cole years after graduation.
Cole is currently working on her first book, Fossil-Fueled Fictions: Coal, Oil, and the Making of American Literary Modernity, and is developing several teaching-focused articles on pedagogical technologies, graduate student certificate programs and course design at teaching-focused institutions.
As she looks to the future, Cole aims to continue supporting and advocating for her students. “I want to make sure that each of my students sees me not only as a teacher but as a mentor, a resource and someone who is truly invested in their success and wellbeing,” she stresses. “Throughout my career, I hope to continue growing, learning and improving as an educator. I want to do everything I can to help my students thrive within and beyond the classroom.”
Honorees and honorable mentions
In addition to Ellis and Cole, Associate Professor of History James Robertson was named a 2024 Deans’ Honoree.
Tamara Beauchamp, writing director and academic coordinator of Humanities Core, received an Honorable Mention for Lecturer of the Year.
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Duncan Pritchard received an Honorable Mention for Excellence in Pedagogy.
“Congratulations to these outstanding educators,” says Tyrus Miller, dean of the School of Humanities. “We are grateful for their dedication to our students’ success and for their steadfast commitment in their classrooms to the core values of the humanities: inclusive and engaged inquiry, critical reasoning and appreciation of the diverse cultural and historical dimensions of human experience.”
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