Lance Rhoades
Excellence in Teaching Award
Recognizes Outstanding Educators Who Are Teaching Assistants
Lance Rhoades
DEPARTMENT: Comparative Literature
COURSES TAUGHT: Writing in Comparative Literature; Perspectives on Film; Introduction to Comparative Literature: Forms, Genres and History; Theory of Film
ACHIEVEMENTS: Rhoades is deeply committed to his own peers and his students, as he is readily available to mentor others outside of the classroom. He helped a student define his academic goals and determine a preferred study-abroad program; he encouraged anxious teaching assistants to sit in on his sections and watch the way he worked through the course material. When a professor became ill and had to leave his position teaching gifted high-school seniors on fiction and film at a summer institute, Rhoades took up the position and has agreed to work there again this summer. In class, Rhoades aims to be creative, depicting new perspectives on old material. He has even developed a new way of teaching Comparative Literature—instead of studying literature from Greek or Roman empires, his students learned about cannibalism and its use in literature. He is also the driving force behind The Filmmaker's Collective, where students discuss and produce films, as well as a film forum, which allows students to view and discuss films that are rarely seen outside of a university setting.
QUOTE: "Lance Rhoades possesses the gift common only to the best of teachers. This gift he combines with a dedication of labor and commitment to his students, the effects of which are easily discerned in daily interactions. I … am duly impressed with his ability to blend poise, confidence and smart ideas with friendly student-teacher interaction." —Comparative Literature Professor Jennifer Bean
DEGREES: B.A., UW, 1998; M.A., UW, 2003