Dr. Lisa Coutu Wins the 2003 UW Distinguished Teaching Award

Posted: 03.14.03 11:30 AM PST

Lisa Coutu, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication, is a recipient of the 2003 UW Distinguished Teaching Award. This is a campus-wide award, and signals her outstanding achievements in teaching.

Dr. Coutu joined the UW faculty in 1996, after completing both her M.A. and Ph.D. in the former Department of Speech Communication.

Lisa teaches a variety of classes in the Department of Communication, including one of the introductory courses and several courses about culture, language, and communication. Today, she still holds true to her statement of intent written for her graduate school application in 1990. In fact, she reads it every quarter to remind herself of what’s truly important about what she teaches in her classroom. It reads, in part:

The courses I enjoyed most [as an undergraduate] were those structured around culture and communication. . . . These courses taught me to begin to look at the world from a perspective that was new to me. The perspective is ethnographic in nature and promotes understanding of diversity. I would like to continue to learn to see from this cultural perspective. As the world turns more and more to communication, in the forms of summits and treaties, to solve its problems, I feel that the understanding gained from studying cultural communication is an integral part of the nurturance of peace. . . . I wish to teach at a university level. I have already learned an enormous amount from the professors with whom I have studied and I would like the opportunity to have a similar role in others’ lives. . . . I want to have the opportunity to apply the academic knowledge and experience I will have gained to the pressing problems of human coexistence.

Lisa is committed to helping students learn about communication theories and how to see those theories in action in the world. She believes in educating students about the complexity of the communication they take for granted in their lives so that they might better see how consequential their interactions with others can be.

Lisa’s students often comment that she is challenging, tough, and concerned with their learning. This, to Lisa, is the highest compliment her students could give. They are inspired to learn as they engage with course material in meaningful ways. Lisa’s hope is that her students will continue to both learn about communication and strive to improve their world through the application of their knowledge.

Congratulations, Lisa!