Kevin Healey

Excellence in Teaching, 2017

Communication

Kevin Healey believes that a good teacher is like a coach who sees a player’s potential even when they don’t – someone who relates to students not as they are now, but as who they are capable of becoming. A good teacher, he says, creates a space of teamwork and encouragement where students discover their strengths and can express original insights in their own voice.

Healey gets to know students personally, establishing rapport by weaving scholarship with personal anecdotes, showing how readings relate to day-to-day life, all with a good balance of sincerity and irreverent humor.

“A good day in the classroom is one where we think a lot and talk a lot, but laugh a lot, too,” the assistant professor of communication says.

And one where students test their technical skills. Last spring, Healey took his class into College Woods and handed out envelopes containing photographs and words like “courage” and “compassion” printed on pieces of paper. After students reviewed the materials – alone and with their cellphones off — they began taking photos representing their emotional response through visual metaphor.

In his digital democracies class, students don’t just write papers, they create websites. His media ethics course has students blogging about weekly readings. It’s no wonder students routinely describe Healey as “inspiring, caring, dedicated and passionate” — all words one would imagine equate to teaching excellence.