Teaching excellence is a top priority of our college! Each year, we present several awards for exemplary teaching and honor the recipients at a celebration in the spring.
Michele Janette, professor, English, was presented the Ronald N. Gaches Lifetime Teaching Award for tenured faculty members who have taught at K-State for at least five years.
Karin Westman, English department head, said this about Dr. Janette:
“While Michele’s undergraduate pedagogy of radical empathy may begin within the classroom’s walls or Zoom screen or office hours, it expands beyond those bounds to undergraduate curriculum development, peer mentoring, and campus leadership. This outward expansion adds a significant dimension to her life-long contributions to undergraduate education. Michele has helped to make our university community more attentive to diverse perspectives and how we can help each other succeed as teachers and scholars.”
Lillianna Lamagna, senior in English, said:
“Michele is someone who commands creative intelligence and thought-provoking engagement. She is someone who guides students into the best versions of themselves [and whom] you hope to run into in the halls to joke and smile with. She shows a multitude of possibilities. Since I have attended K-State, my academic career has and continues to wonderfully flourish, and I can confidently say that it’s because of Michele Janette.”