Amidon, Burke recognized with Cassling Family Faculty Awards

Kevin Amidon, Associate Professor, Department of World Languages and Cultures, and Brianna Burke, Assistant Professor, Department of English, have each received Cassling Family Faculty Awards.

They will be recognized at the Liberal Arts and Sciences Fall Convocation and Awards Ceremony on Thursday, September 10, at 3:30 p.m. in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union.

Cassling Family Faculty Awards Recognizes and rewards outstanding faculty in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences:

•   Kevin Amidon, Associate Professor, Department of World Languages and Cultures (Outstanding Teaching Performance). Since 2002, Amidon has distinguished himself as an exemplary scholar-teacher of German language and culture. His outstanding teaching portfolio includes 14 meticulously-designed new courses and remarkably high evaluation averages across courses: 4.8 for overall instructor and 4.52 for overall course rating (with several superlative 5.0). His dedication to student centered learning goes far beyond his classroom, as he works tirelessly on individualized undergraduate and graduate research projects, honors courses, and independent studies. He is also an internationally recognized scholar, whose research infuses his classes with interdisciplinary approaches, and whose curricular and extracurricular endeavors have been acknowledged nationally as a pedagogical model.

•   Brianna Burke, Assistant Professor, Department of English (Early Achievement in Teaching). Burke specializes in environmental literature and Native American literature. She earned a Ph.D. in English from Tufts University in 2011 and joined the faculty at Iowa State later that year. She has published multiple essays on environmental justice in contemporary American fiction, and she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in English on subjects ranging from environmental fiction to contemporary film to Native American and post-colonial studies. She is also affiliated faculty in the Iowa State program for Women’s and Gender Studies.

See all 2015 faculty and staff awards.