Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award

2026 - Jennifer Lorden, Associate Professor of English

Professor Jennifer Lorden, you are an uncommonly gifted teacher. Since joining William & Mary in 2019, you have distinguished yourself as a transformative classroom instructor and an innovator in early medieval literary studies.

Colleagues and students describe you as one of the best educators they have encountered. You teach some of the English department’s most demanding mate-rial, building students’ confidence and curiosity while they grapple with Old English. Students describe your classes as intellectually thrilling. You create welcoming spaces where students read aloud and translate with excitement, and where literary history feels alive and relevant. Several of these students write that it was your mentorship that reshaped their academic and professional trajectories.

Your courses add breadth to the curriculum and make medieval literature accessible. You catalyze interdisciplinary conversations between historical texts and contempo-rary culture. Your success is reinforced by a substantial record of service in your field, including leading the Modern Language Association’s Old English Forum and mentoring through national professional organizations.

Professor Jennifer Lorden, you distinguish yourself as an educator. You have strength-ened the field of medieval studies and enriched the intellectual lives of William & Mary’s students. We are pleased to award you the 2026 Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award.

2025 - Phillip E. Wagner, Clinical Associate Professor in Organizational Behavior

Phillip Wagner, through your commitment to innovative pedagogy and inclusive excellence, you continue to inspire and engage the William & Mary student body. 

Much of your work explores difficult themes that lie at the intersection of business and society. You clearly embody the qualities of care, dedication and intellectual rigor that are hallmarks of the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award. Since joining William & Mary during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, you have consistently demonstrated exceptional dedication to teaching, research and service. In addition to facilitating knowledge related to management and communications, you foster critical thinking and information literacy. You have consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to experiential learning and high-impact practices.

Phillip Wagner, your pedagogy is a gift to William & Mary. In light of your exemplary contributions to teaching and your commitment to our students’ intellectual and personal development, it is our great pleasure to honor you with the 2025 Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award.

2024 - Claire McKinney, Government and Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies

Claire McKinney, through outstanding teaching achievements in the Department of Government and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies (GSWS) Program, you have made an indelible impact on our student body. You educate students across all levels — from freshmen to graduate students — with dedication, broadening their academic horizons and deepening their understanding of complex societal dynamics.

You infuse your teaching with a blend of ethical insight and educational innovation. Many of your courses engage students from different disciplinary backgrounds, reflecting William & Mary’s strong commitment to liberal arts education and inclusive excellence. You approach teaching with empathy and make intricate subject matter inviting. You adeptly guide students through uncharted territories of thought, fostering a comfortable space to confront the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable.

Since arriving in 2016, you have developed innovative curricula and taught new courses, particularly in areas that have been historically overlooked in academia. These courses now rank among the most stimulating and crucial in our curriculum. You explore the nuanced interplay of feminism, medicalized citizenship, transgender theory, political processes, disability justice and reproductive rights within the United States. Your approach to theoretical materials sparks in-depth analysis and vibrant discussions. You inspire students to read with passion and connect academic theories to real-world issues.

Your courses are noted for both their rigor and the supportive environment you create. Your teaching draws from disability activism and scholarship to anticipate the needs and aspirations of many types of bodies and backgrounds. You encourage students to recognize the diversity of disability as generative of knowledge and norms that can remake our classrooms, institutions and society.

Your impact beyond the classroom is immeasurable. You have contributed generous time and energy to our community, delivering over a dozen campus talks at the request of student organizations and academic units. You have supervised honors theses and independent study projects and co-chaired a dissertation on the graduate program in American Studies.

Claire McKinney, your pedagogy is a gift to William & Mary. Your fierce intellectualism, passion and care inspire your students. In light of your exemplary contributions to teaching and your commitment to our students’ intellectual and personal development, it is our great pleasure to honor you with the 2024 Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award.

2023 - Stacy Kern-Scheerer, William & Mary Law School

Stacy Elizabeth Kern-Scheerer, Clinical Associate Professor of Law and the Director of Clinical Programs at the William & Mary Law School, you inspire your colleagues and students daily. Your successes in the immigration law clinic, in particular, leave students with lasting impressions of lawyers’ capacities to help others.

A faculty leader on teaching, you are fabulously successful in all your classes. Initially hired to teach Legal Research & Writing, you took on additional teaching responsibilities in doctrinal courses in health law, a field you practiced for the U.S. Senate. In under 10 years, you swept William & Mary Law School’s highest teaching awards, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that the awards are all conferred by different groups. The graduating class twice chose you for the Walter Williams Teaching Award; a committee of faculty, students and alumni chose you for the McGlothlin Teaching Award; and the Dean appointed you the Kelly Professor for Teaching Excellence, a term professorship that obligates the winner to hold workshops for colleagues on improving teaching.

You combine an entrepreneurial mindset with a commitment to service. In 2019, you saw a need for something new: an immigration clinic to provide hands-on learning for students and service to the community. Since you created it in fall 2019, the Law School’s immigration clinic has thrived. The clinic recently won its first asylum case and is now making news by assisting Afghan refugees with visa and residency applications.

Your impact on not just the clients but also the students in the immigration clinic is lifechanging. Student comments from your evaluations routinely emphasize the profound effect you have on their lives. They note: Professor Kern-Scheerer “reminded me of why I came to law school”; she “knew appropriate strategies to motivate us and reassure us”; she “balances well the difficulty of the work but also the necessary human aspect”; and, perhaps most telling of all, Professor Kern-Scheerer’s work demonstrates the “perfect example of the power of having an attorney.”

Professor Stacy Kern-Scheerer, you embody the values we instill in our students at William & Mary. Recently elected to the Williamsburg City Council, you improve our community, your students’ lives and your clients’ welfare. It is most fitting that William & Mary honors you with the 2023 Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award.

2022 - Christopher J. Hein, Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Christopher Hein is the consummate modern scholar-teacher: pushing the boundaries of scientific knowledge and deeply engaged in student learning and personal growth. Hein is internationally recognized as an expert in coastal geology. He has an infectious enthusiasm for science and an innate ability to inspire others. His lectures are dynamic, high-energy and interactive, making his courses extremely popular.

Since 2013, Hein has advised seven graduate students in the School of Marine Science at VIMS and a remarkable 20 undergraduates on senior or honors research projects. He currently serves as co-director of the Undergraduate Program in Marine Science and is deeply engaged in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts within his field of study and at the university. He is recognized for his devotion to the personal and professional growth of students, commitment to advancing DEI, and exceptional teaching and mentoring skills.