Deans’ Award for Teaching
The Deans’ Award for Teaching is one the highest honors bestowed to TCU faculty at the university level. Nominees are selected by their peers based on their exceptional dedication to teaching and teaching-related activities. Deans vote on the top three to honor for their unique ability to challenge students to learn and grow while providing support and attention for their students’ success. Each honoree receives $2,500.
Requirements: Full-time faculty who have been at TCU five years or more and have not been honored with either Deans’ Award nor the Chancellor’s Award in the previous seven years.
Nomination Process: Colleges and schools follow internal guidelines for their nomination processes. Each may submit one nominee, with AddRan College for Liberal Arts allowed to submit two: one from Humanities and one from Social Sciences.
Timeline: Each fall, the Provost’s Office submits Call for Nominations and nomination packets to deans. Deadline for nominations is mid-March. Deans convene and vote. Honorees are announced in April.
2026 Deans’ Award for Teaching
Stephanie Bailey
Senior Instructor of Fashion Merchandising
College of Fine Arts
In her own words: Fashion education becomes transformative when students engage with garments not simply as products, but as systems of knowledge that connect material practice, cultural meaning, and technical decision-making. I believe students learn most effectively through direct engagement with materials, historical artifacts, and contemporary industry challenges. I design learning environments that require students to think like scholars, makers, and professionals simultaneously. Students move beyond memorizing information toward interpreting, constructing, and critically evaluating the garments and systems that shape the global apparel industry. They learn not only how garments are made, but why design decisions matter historically, culturally, and technologically. The goal is to cultivate graduates who can analyze fashion as both material culture and creative practice while applying their skills in professional contexts.
Mark Dennis
Professor of Religion
AddRan College of Liberal Arts
In his own words: Education should not only expand intellectual understanding, it also should cultivate critical self-awareness, ethical grounding, and the courage to examine one’s deepest assumptions. I combine critical inquiry with contemplative practice—an approach I have developed in the classroom and articulated in my scholarship on teaching, learning, and collaborative work on TCU’s CALM Studies program. Experiential and collaborative learning play a central role in all my courses. I introduce students to carefully structured meditation and mindfulness exercises to explore central course ideas such as impermanence, interdependence, and selflessness. Contemplative practice, integrative case studies, immersive role-play, and sustained reflection on flourishing are not merely pedagogical techniques; they are expressions of the conviction that education at its best is humanizing, not merely informational and transactional.
Lisette Saleh
Associate Professor of Nursing
Harris College for Nursing & Health Sciences
In her own words: My role as a nurse focused on encouragement, education, and active engagement with my patients in their own experience. This , along with my experience educating new nurses, drove my passion to become an educator. As an educator, I provide a safe environment for self-discovery, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and alignment with current nursing science and educational practices. I cultivate new student nurses to gain the skills and knowledge needed to practice as ethical, safe, and knowledgeable nurses for the global community. I strive to be a person they can trust, open to ideas and learning, whom they seek for career advice and who is there to celebrate their successes or encourage them when they are struggling.
2026 Deans’ Award for Teaching Nominees
Renee Olvera, Accounting
Brendan Lavy, Environmental and Sustainability Sciences
Debra Iba, Communication Studies
Miriam Ezzani, Educational Leadership and Higher Education
Carrie Liu Currier, Political Science
2025 Deans Award for Teaching
Kathleen Kyzar, Early Childhood and Special Education
Michele Meitl, Criminology and Criminal Justice s
Tracey Rockett, Management and Leadership
2024 Deans’ Award for Teaching
Robin Griffith, College of Education
Emily Herzig, College of Science & Engineering
Santiago Piñon, AddRan College of Liberal Arts – Humanities
2023 Deans’ Award for Teaching
Jan Lacina, Early Childhood Education
Jacqueline Lambiase, Strategic Communication
Katie Lauve-Moon, Social Work
2022 Deans’ Award for Teaching
Ashley English, Strategic Communication
Alex Lemon. English
Jennifer Smith, Literacy
2021 Deans’ Award for Teaching
Michelle Bauml, Early Childhood/Social Studies Education
Beata Jones, Business Information Systems
Penny Maas, Theatre
2020 Deans’ Award for Teaching
Cynthia Savage, Education
Carol Thompson, Sociology
Jean Marie Brown, Journalism
For a complete list of Dean’s Award for Teaching nominees and honorees from 1986 to present, contact the Provost’s Office at provost@tcu.edu.