LAS Master Teacher Awardees 2008

Matthew Lippman
Professor of Criminology, Law and Justice

Matthew Lippman describes himself as "a teacher of the old school" for whom "learning is a joint journey of insight, knowledge and self-awareness: between a passionate and prepared instructor and students who are provoked, animated, and inspired to learn and to develop." In his twenty three years at UIC, Lippman has received six Silver Circle awards, the UIC Flame (Alumni Award), the Excellence in Teaching Award, the Teaching Recognition (Portfolio Award) and has been named Honors College Fellow of the Year and, on three occasions, Alpha Phi Sigma Professor of the Year. In his research, Lippman addresses questions of human rights throughout the word; he has studied torture, genocide, the My Lai massacre and the Vietnam war, Nazi medical experiments, the Miranda ruling, civil resistance and terrorism. In the words of one of his many grateful students, Matthew Lippman is "the epitome of what every UIC professor should be."


Karina Reyes
Associate Professor of Psychology

Karina Reyes studies and teaches clinical and community psychology with special attention to the prevention of high-risk behaviors among children and adolescents from urban minority and low-income status backgrounds. An alumna of UIC, she describes herself as delighted to return as a colleague to her former teachers. She believes "that students cannot be available to learn unless they feel safe to not know. That sense of safety is impossible if students do not experience their instructor as accessible and allied with them in the learning process." A recipient of a UIC Teaching Recognition Award, Professor Reyes has devoted herself enthusiastically to the psychology department’s Graduate Educational Opportunity Committee (GEOC) and helped to establish a graduate program in Community and Prevention Research. Her work has brought nuance into students’ and faculty’s awareness of issues of diversity. Her students appreciate her efforts to create a "safe" classroom, her extensive examples and her careful attention to their differing ways of learning.


David Weible
Associate Professor of Germanic Studies

David Weible has maintained that an instructor’s chief concern should be to facilitate learning. In his twenty two years in the UIC Department of Germanic Studies, Weible has often turned to technology to find new, interesting and more effective means of presentation. In the early 1970s, for example, he developed a successful German reading program for the PLATO IV system; later, he was an early adopter of Blackboard. Weible now uses podcasts to present the core information of his courses in a multi-media environment. He has found that "the ability to have discrete chapters within each episode and to link artwork and websites individually to those chapters creates a very powerful learning tool." Weible publishes widely and conducts frequent workshops in the field of language pedagogy. As Director of Undergraduate Studies, Weible has created an extensive database that enables the department to provide timely and targeted assistance to students. Professor Astrida Tantillo, head of the Department of Germanic Studies, comments that the ‘breadth’ and ‘richness’ of Weible’s teaching allows students to understand such complex texts as Fassbinder films as well as the broad historical context from which they emerge.