UCLA recognizes instructors at 2025 Andrea L. Rich Night to Honor Teaching

UCLA instructors with a commitment to innovative teaching practices and outstanding educational service were recently honored at the 2025 Andrea L. Rich Night to Honor Teaching annual awards ceremony. The awards are sponsored by the Teaching and Learning Center and the UCLA Office of the Chancellor.

The Distinguished Teaching Awards, the university’s highest teaching honor, recognize instructors in three categories: senate faculty, non-senate faculty and teaching assistants. Criteria such as student success, use of innovative teaching methods, efforts to foster learning for all students, community engagement activities, and student surveys are considered by the selection committee in determining the recipients.

This year’s Night to Honor Teaching also recognized the center’s Educational Innovation Grants winners, who are leading initiatives to enhance the learning experience at UCLA. The program awarded approximately $1 million during the 2024–2025 academic year to fund projects aimed at making instructional improvements for students, instructors and departments.

The Night to Honor Teaching emphasizes that instructional excellence remains a key priority on campus. Elevating excellent teaching is outlined in the UCLA for Life flagship initiative, a part of Chancellor Julio Frenk’s One UCLA campaign and Goal 4 of the university’s strategic plan.

Michael Levine, vice chancellor for academic affairs and personnel, delivered remarks at the ceremony on behalf of Chancellor Frenk, highlighting the key mentorship teachers provide to individuals across various levels of society.

“Teaching is the foundation of all professions,” Levine said. “This is because every leader, professional, and engaged citizen was influenced and guided by educators. It is a discipline that reaches back to the ancient roots of humanity.”

Overall, the Night to Honor Teaching celebrated the dedicated educators who provide students the time and space to learn, creating the conditions for students to thrive in achieving their academic goals.

Distinguished Teaching Senate Faculty Award recipients

The Distinguished Senate Faculty Award winners for 2025 are professors Idan Blank, Jessica L. Collett, Stephen Gardbaum, Tracy Johnson, Jonathan Kao and Robin D.G. Kelley.

Idan Blank is an assistant professor of psychology with a courtesy appointment in linguistics at the UCLA College. His research into psycholinguistics explores how the human brain understands language. In his courses, Blank adapts lessons to help students connect with new material in a way that acknowledges the changing world. “I have to talk to students in their language and in ways that would benefit them without compromising critical thinking, and that means constantly changing,” he said.

Jessica L. Collett is a professor of sociology at the UCLA College. Her teaching practice is informed by her experiences attending a small community college, where instructors offered the time and attention to form impactful relationships with students. These opportunities have inspired Collett to invite research assistants and students into her own home at the end of her courses. “It makes me think about the professors who invited me as an undergraduate into their lives and made not only sociology accessible but profoundly shaped how I view my role as a professor,” she shared.

Stephen Gardbaum is the Stephen Yeazell Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. His research into constitutional law led him to create a comparative constitutional law course at UCLA that draws students from around the world. Gardbaum’s students come from various political and legal frameworks, which creates opportunities for rich discussion as they share their knowledge bases. “It’s very rewarding to me when I see that students from around the world become study partners,” he noted. “That to me is a sign of success — that I am bringing all of these varied students together.”

Tracy Johnson is dean of life sciences at the UCLA College and holder of the Keith and Cecilia Terasaki Presidential Endowed Chair, and a professor in the department of molecular, cell and developmental biology. She believes that educating students in the sciences is not simply about conveying factual information but modeling how to think scientifically about key topics and questions. “What does it mean to do science? It’s a way of looking at the world,” Johnson explained. “The value of undergraduate education is that you put that into practice … of being in a space where you practice doing it.”

Jonathan Kao is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. He finds teaching offers scholars a way to accept the gaps in their own knowledge, as well as an opportunity to become better experts on unfamiliar concepts. In designing a new artificial intelligence course, he became more knowledgeable about tools he was previously not as familiar with. “The act of offering this second course made it so I had to learn this material at such a depth so that I could teach it to the students,” he recalled.

Robin D.G. Kelley is a distinguished professor and the Gary B. Nash Professor of U.S. History in the Meyer and Renee Luskin Department of History at the UCLA College. Throughout his 40 years as an instructor, he has moved his teaching practice beyond enforcing traditional grading systems to center grace and prioritize students’ productive struggle with course material. Instead, Kelley applies rigor to helping students think systematically about complex topics and issues. “Everything about teaching is grace … to have grace is to figure out how to help them, not fail them,” he said.