Rose Tirotta, Ed.D., Associate Director of Teaching Excellence

On May 6th, 2021, Dr. George Fouron won the 2020-2021 COVID Teaching Hero Award at CELT’s Celebration of Teaching. 

Despite the challenges involved in moving to a remote teaching environment, Dr. Fouron displayed grace under pressure as he adapted to teaching over Zoom where he demonstrated compassion and empathy for his students while maintaining academic rigor and teaching effectiveness. In referring to the educator John Dewey, Dr. Fouron remarked that teachers “shouldn’t be strangers to the realities of students’ lives.” Teaching during the pandemic taught him that students are resilient in the face of difficulties, and often says that he is not interested in having students agree with his views, but rather he wants students to be able to articulate their own perspectives as both teachers and learners.  His calm and determined demeanor throughout a difficult semester was inspiring not only to his students but to all of us here in CELT.  

I had the opportunity to sit in on two of Dr. Fouron’s courses and was impressed by the way he facilitated his courses. Dr. Fouron consistently asked for student feedback and, most importantly, asked students to share their stories. Dr. Fouron also had many interesting and powerful stories, which addressed race, gender, and class, among other issues. Any questions that were asked were addressed positively and I felt like his class formed a strong community with each other, overcoming the challenges that COVID pressed upon them. Starting each class he also addressed the students saying that this class was for them, that every student had a voice, and that voice had the right to be heard. 

What I think was the most powerful is that Dr. Fouron, after being a target of some horrible “Zoom-bombing” experiences, was able to accept me (and others) into his class for the semester and meet synchronously. He continued to teach Socratically and support his students during this difficult time (COVID) which provided them a sense of  community.

Thank you Dr. Fouron, and congratulations!