The Russell Foundation established three teaching awards in 1992 to recognize excellent undergraduate instruction by early career faculty members. The $10,000 awards are presented annually at the UGA Faculty Recognition Banquet. To learn more about the Richard B. Russell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, please visit https://provost.uga.edu/academic-excellence/honors-awards/teaching-awards-professorships/richard-russell-awards-for-excellence-in-undergraduate-teaching/. 

The 2024-25 Russell Teaching Award winners are Harrison P. Frye, Glenna L. Read, and Alexander T. Strauss. 

As a political theorist, Frye’s classes focus on controversial questions related to politics and society. While navigating such topics can be perilous, Frye fosters an open classroom environment that facilitates robust but reasoned debate. He often assigns students to defend views that they do not personally hold. To help students master material that is subject to profound disagreement, Frye focuses on three basic goals. First, he wants students to understand the complexity of difficult issues. Second, he aims to help students understand viewpoints they disagree with. Lastly, he expects students to learn to write strong, clear papers that explain and convincingly defend positions related to the fundamental questions of politics. In each of his courses, Frye limits his lectures and uses a Socratic approach, pushing and prodding students to expand on or rephrase their thoughts. Regular writing assignments — and chances to rewrite and revise papers in response to Frye’s comments — give students an opportunity to think more clearly about their beliefs and their reasons for those beliefs. Frye’s approach to writing assignments has shifted his students’ focus from earning a particular grade to mastering the material. He hopes this change makes a lasting impression and helps students retain lessons about critical thinking and consider competing viewpoints outside the classroom.

Read teaches a core advertising class that is challenging for students and instructors alike. The course on media strategy and activation emphasizes strategic thinking and mathematical concepts as students work through the process of creating a media plan. To engage students and achieve the rigorous course objectives, Read has incorporated a variety of innovative teaching practices. Based on feedback from students, Read gamified the course’s section on ratings math, so students compete to solve problems using key formulas. She redevelops the course each semester and incorporates additional active learning approaches to engage students in critical thinking. Read also emphasizes how the course content aligns with her students’ career goals. Read’s research focuses on the use of biometric tools in advertising, which help companies understand how consumers react to their ads. She incorporates discussion of these tools in her courses and exposes students to an evolving technology before they enter the job market.

Strauss’ teaching goals are to engage his students’ curiosity, hone their critical thinking and foster their scientific literacy. Since joining UGA in 2020, Strauss has redesigned and taught three of the four core classes in the Odom School of Ecology multiple times. By incorporating hands-on fieldwork, collaborative projects and practical applications of ecological theory, Strauss ensures students receive a well-rounded education that prepares them for real-world challenges in their future careers. Strauss has systematically redesigned his flagship course, population and community ecology, with innovations such as think-pair-shares, structured discussions of articles from the primary literature and scaffolded problem sets where students analyze ecological data in R, a programming language for statistical computing and data visualization. He also devotes a substantial portion of class to activities and assignments that target math fear. He breaks up lectures with activities that require students to derive equations and sketch relationships on individual white boards. Students perform mathematical calculations, sketch graphs and seek ecological patterns in real data. Group research projects are another major component of the class. Recognizing that students come from a variety of backgrounds and are heading for a wide range of careers, Strauss strives to teach in a way that connects with as many students as possible.

Past Winners

2023-2024
Jill Anderson
Richard Hall
Laura Zimmerman

2022-2023
Gino D'Angelo
Jillian Bohlen
Krista Capps

2021-2022
Jennifer A. Brown
Paul Pollack
Julie Stanton

2020-2021
Jennifer Birch
Jonathan Peters
Emily Sahakian

2019-2020
Tessa Andrews
Tim Samples
Jerry Shannon

2018-2019
Vera Lee-Schoenfeld
Amy Pollard
Sarah Shannon

2017-2018
Christine Albright
Michael Cacciatore
Alex Reed 

2016-2017
Kelly Dyer
Sonia Hernandez
John Mativo 

2015-2016
Robert Beckstead
Kimberly Skobba
Zachary Wood 

2014-2015
Peter Jutras
Andrew Owsiak
Jennifer Palmer 

2013-2014
Anthony Madonna
Maria Navarro
John Schramski 

2012-2013
John Knox
Shari Miller
Ronald Pegg 

2011-2012
James Byers
Joseph Goetz 
Gary Green 

2010-2011
Wesley Allen 
John Maerz 
Kaye Sweetser 

2009-2010
Tracie Costantino 
Brock Tessman 
Craig Wiegert 

2008-2009
Gayle Andrews
Richard Menke
Lance Palmer 

2007-2008
Patricia Richards
George Contini
Mitos Andaya 

2006-2007
Jason Cantarella
Linda Renzulli
Jaroslav Tir 

2005-2006
Peggy Brickman
Audrey A. Haynes
David Mustard 

2004-2005
Jeffrey D. Berejikian 
Takoi Hamrita 
Rodney Mauricio 

2003-2004
Jody Clay-Warner 
Denise S. Mewborn 
Marisa Anne Pagnattaro 

2002-2003
Carolina Acosta-Alzuru
Rhett Jackson
Martin H. Kagel 

2001-2002
Ann Hollifield
Stefanie A. Lindquist
Marc L. Lipson 

2000-2001
Benjamin C. Ayers
David H. Downs
Reuben A. Buford May

1999-2000
James E. Coverdill
Randi N. Stanulis
Clark Wolf 

1998-1999
Victoria Davion
Richard M. Ingersoll
Katherine Kipp 

1997-1998
Marie Annette Chisholm
Elizabeth Pate
Lynne M. Sallot 

1996-1997
Alan R. Dennis
Peg Graham
Jay W. Rojewski 

1995-1996
Robert G. Boehmer
Noel Fallows
Tricia A. Lootens 

1994-1995
Jere W. Morehead
Scott A. Shamp
David S. Williams

1993-1994
Cham E. Dallas
James P. Gilbert
Catherine M. Jones 

1992-1993
Christy Desmet
Robert E. Hoyt
Steven C. Turner 

1991-1992
Peggy Kreshel
Edward J. Larson
Janice Simon