This year’s Reginald D. Archambault Award for Teaching Excellence in Pre-College Education recipient is Falaks Vasa, who taught the course, “Queer Strategies of Resistance: Fools, Tricksters, Shapeshifters” this past summer.

Falaks developed and facilitated a rigorous, approachable and unique course. They presented students with a significant challenge: to set and be accountable for their own goals and growth within the course. This challenge allowed the students to become deeply engaged as co-facilitators of the academic experience. Falaks used a Social Location Acknowledgement tool to provide students with insight about who they were and how to value each student as an individual uniquely poised to contribute and co-create an incredible learning environment.

By using various curricular elements such as crafting shared community guidelines, Falaks built and facilitated an inclusive environment where students were asked to design and create a space that was ideal for learning. This intentional effort resulted in a classroom experience where students participated as their authentic selves and contributed thoughtfully to the work at hand. Students provided significant praise for this course and described a sense of unity built by the group as the course progressed.

Reginald D. Archambault Award for Teaching Excellence

The Reginald D. Archambault Award for Teaching Excellence recognizes, rewards, and promotes excellence in teaching for the Brown University summer programs, including Pre-College Programs and Summer Session. The award is presented by the Division of Pre-College and Undergraduate Programs (PCUG) of Brown University.

Reginald D. Archambault, Professor of Education emeritus, was the inaugural Dean of Summer Studies, 1984 – 1992. An expert in the educational philosophy and works of John Dewey, Prof. Archambault served as Chair of Brown’s Education Department from 1967 through the early eighties, contributing greatly to the Brown Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program and developing the Brown Summer High School as a teaching laboratory. He remains a dedicated admirer of the craft of pedagogy.