Where Passion Meets the Podium: SIUE's 2026 Teaching Award Recipients Redefine What It Means to Teach

Where Passion Meets the Podium: SIUE's 2026 Teaching Award Recipients Redefine What It Means to Teach

Each year, faculty members at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville change the trajectory lives without ever realizing it in the moment. This year, SIUE is celebrating eleven such educators, spanning psychology, nursing, pharmacy, engineering, social work, world languages and English, as recipients of the 2026 Teaching Excellence, Distinction, and Recognition Awards.

What emerges from their reflections is not a single formula for great teaching, but a shared instinct: Show up for students as people first.

For Sarah Conoyer, PhD, NCSP, an SIUE alumna, '98, and associate professor of psychology, the award feels like a homecoming. "This university played such an influential role in shaping who I am as a student, psychologist and educator," she said. "One of my greatest hopes is that I can provide students with the same encouragement, opportunities and belief in their potential that others provided to me."

That belief in potential threads through the commentary of nearly every recipient. Bethany Kassebaum, who teaches anatomy and physiology to hundreds of students each semester, described watching students who "enter the course convinced they cannot succeed" gradually discover otherwise. Her most powerful teaching moment came not in a classroom but in a hospital room, where she found a former student, now a nurse, caring for her critically ill mother. "A small impact that I had made on them was now being turned around and having a huge impact on me, my family and countless other patients," she said.

Nursing instructor Amanda Shoemaker, MSN, RN, echoed that sense of purpose: "My students are my motivation. Knowing that the nurses I educate today will care for future patients... gives purpose to everything I do."

Nurse anesthesia professor Kevin Stein, DNAP, CRNA, APRN, put it in terms of legacy: "When you teach one student well, the impact extends to every patient that student cares for throughout their career."

School of Pharmacy's Jared Sheley, PharmD, BCPS, spoke of a simple reframe he gives every student: "Treat every patient as if they were a loved one."

Engineering professor Michael Denn, PhD, who traded a 30-year aerospace and automotive career for the classroom, said he now measures success by watching students "primarily motivated by a desire to deeply understand the course material" rather than by grades alone.

Amardeep Kaur, PhD, of Electrical and Computer Engineering department, hopes former students would say she "made it make sense and made us feel like we could do it."

Social work's Jennifer Erwin, JD, MSW, PhD, admitted her philosophy still evolves "almost every year," while Spanish professor Heidy Cuervo, PhD spoke of teaching as "meaningful, authentic and connected to real life."

English professor Donavan Ramon, PhD, newly named director of Black Studies, put the stakes plainly: He wants students to "think critically, communicate effectively and question everything." His emphasis on intellectual curiosity and thoughtful engagement is echoed across disciplines, where faculty encourage students to see challenges not as barriers, but as opportunities to learn and grow.

Similarly, chemistry professor Sarah Luesse, PhD, emphasizes that perseverance through hands-on learning is an essential part of that growth. "Adversity can lead to growth and learning," she said, encouraging students to embrace difficult problems, learn from failure and approach challenges from new directions.

Together, SIUE's 2026 teaching honorees demonstrate that while their disciplines, classrooms and approaches may differ, they are united by a powerful conviction: Teaching excellence is ultimately about people and their potential. Whether preparing nurses to provide compassionate care, engineers to solve complex problems, pharmacists to make sound clinical decisions or students to think critically and become lifelong learners, these educators are doing more than imparting knowledge. They are challenging students to persevere, question, discover, and grow. At the heart of their work is a lasting measure of great teaching, not simply what students come to know, but who they gain the confidence, skills and courage to become.

PHOTOS by Howard Ash

Top row: Conoyer-Sarah, Cuervo-Heidy, Denn-Michael, Erwin-Jennifer, Kassebaum-Bethany

Bottom row: Kaur-Amardeep, Luesse-Sarah, Ramon-Donavan, Sheley-Jared, Shoemaker-Amanda, Stein-Kevin