2020 Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence

Citation for Veronika Burney

Professor Burney has enriched the German Studies curriculum at all levels, incorporating new topics and new materials while infusing into her courses a deeper understanding of social diversity and inclusion. She designed a new upper-level course on Intercultural Literature, introducing students to the large but routinely ignored body of work by writers with minority backgrounds. Her course on Pop Culture in Germany encourages students to study “street art” as a serious form of cultural critique. In response to student interest, she is researching and formulating another new course that reimagines language in the contexts of business and economics, alongside the German consumers’ insistence on ecologically sustainable business practices.

Students in her COLL 150 course on German Media practice critical approaches to research by comparing U.S. and German media presentations of current affairs; and learn to succeed in the sometimes mysterious art of writing an academic paper. Across all of her courses she has won the esteem of her students and scored significantly above the departmental average in her teaching evaluations. Also notable are her contributions directing the Study Abroad Program in Potsdam, Germany; supervising the German International Fellows and their German House activities, directing an Honors Thesis, and serving as Freshman advisor.

It is fitting that she now be recognized with the Arts & Sciences 2020 Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence.