This Tuesday (May 31), Pranav Anand will receive the Dizikes Faculty Teaching Award in the Humanities. It recognizes Pranav for his ability to inspire and engage students over the years and for creating an inclusive learning environment that challenges and encourages all students. In his teaching statement, Pranav writes:
“For me, successful teaching begins in imaginative engagement, in divining the epistemic state of my students, both as I am designing materials weeks before meeting them and in answering questions in the classroom. To be sure, this process is partly atavistic communion with my earlier scholarly self. However, I have found that my teaching has improved as I have down-weighted impressions of my own experience and concentrated simply on understanding the psyches of the persons directly in front of me. Such a process is indelibly empathic, and it is for this reason that all the potentially tired analogies of teaching and parenting ring so true for me. Both cases are virtually unique in granting one the longitudinal privilege of beholding someone mature in real time over several years.”
Each year’s recipient selects a student to receive a scholarship in their name. The 2016 Pranav Anand Scholarship will go to linguistics undergraduate Dhyana Buckley. Both Pranav and Dhayana will be honored at the Celebrating the Humanities event, which will take place on Tuesday from 4 to 6 pm at the Cowell Provost House.