Clare Stacey, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at
Kent State University, is surrounded by her students and
co-workers after she was honored with a Distinguished
Teaching Award.

Clare Stacey, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at Kent State University, works to create a culture that allows her students an opportunity to relate to the course materials in a personal way. This is one reason why she won a Distinguished Teaching Award.

“I don’t believe you learn unless you make a connection to your own experience,” Stacey says. “Once you share that and share your experience with your peers or the instructor, I believe that those are the moments of learning.”

The Distinguished Teaching Award, sponsored by the Kent State University Alumni Association, is the university’s most prestigious teaching award presented annually to full-time, tenure-track faculty members who exhibit outstanding classroom performance.

“Every student comes to the classroom with a different set of beliefs, background, experience and current life events,” Stacey says. “I think an instructor’s job is to try to not pry into their lives, but connect with students — individually and collectively — so that despite all of these differences, they can connect with the class.”

The focus on student perspectives and the discussion of these perceptions has brought recognition to Stacey from her students and fellow faculty members.

“Dr. Stacey makes students feel comfortable inside and outside the classroom, which only better enables them to trust her enough to be vulnerable in the learning process,” says Brooke Long, Stacey’s former student and teaching assistant. “There is no doubt in my mind that Dr. Stacey personally knows each and every student who interacts with her.”

Stacey feels it is essential to create the conversations that will allow students to make a connection to the materials they discuss in her courses.

“Even if I have a lecture of 100 people, I still expect us to talk to each other,” says Stacey. “Unless discussion is present, students don’t have a reason to invest in the class.”

In addition to personalized discussions, Stacey hopes to provide students with a real-world experience. The instructor’s fondest memory at Kent State was the chance to teach the course Social Problems, where students volunteered at various organizations. At the end of the course, students were tasked with choosing an organization to donate money to.

“What was so rewarding as an instructor was that the students — because of that weight of the donation process — had to ask questions of these organizations. They really had to think about where their money would be put to use,” Stacey says. “They were fully invested in this class and were able to make connections between what they were doing in the classroom about inequality and what they were seeing in their volunteer experience.”

Students like Victoria Reynolds appreciate the knowledge they have gained from Stacey’s class.

“I am graduating this upcoming May, and as I look back on my education, I always find myself returning to Stacey’s class,” says Reynolds. “She was an outstanding professor and a true inspiration.”

For more information about Kent State’s Department of Sociology, visit www.kent.edu/sociology.

For more information about the Distinguished Teaching Award, visit www.ksualumni.org/s/401/social.aspx?sid=401&gid=1&pgid=296.