2024-25 Teaching & Learning Award Winners
Teaching Awards
Four awards recognize excellence in teaching among WSB Faculty, academic staff, and graduate instructors. These awards recognize outstanding contributions to teaching, learning, and assessment at WSB, emphasizing innovation, adaptability, and student engagement. These awards recognize exceptional instruction both inside and outside the classroom, including contributions to learning support services, instructional design, and student mentorship.
Student Learning & Engagement Award
This award recognizes faculty and instructional staff who have exceeded expectations to inspire, engage, and create transformative learning experiences. Honorees have demonstrated collaboration across units, a commitment to sustainable educational impact, and innovation in student learning.
(NEW!) Gaumnitz Excellence in Instruction with AI Award
This award recognizes faculty or instructional staff members who have demonstrated excellence in creatively and purposefully integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into their teaching. The recipient has used AI to significantly enhance student learning, engagement, and outcomes while aligning with the WSB mission and the Critical Teaching Behaviors framework. The award celebrates those who are “AI Together Forward” in their pursuit of pushing AI-driven education forward.
Faculty Awards
Gaumnitz Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award
Dan Sacks | Department of Risk and Insurance
Since joining WSB in 2022, Professor Sacks has made an impact in our expanding graduate analytics programs and in his service to the teaching and learning mission. This associate professor of Risk Management and Insurance delivers not only excellent instruction but demonstrates caring and commitment to student success, utilizing learning analytics to better understand where students excel or struggle. One of his students writes, “He was adept at breaking down intricate concepts about experiments and causal methods, ensuring all students could grasp the content…integrating real-world examples helped bridge theoretical knowledge with practical applications, improving understanding.” Another writes, “I truly appreciate how kind he was. He was patient and understanding of us folks who had limited knowledge in this subject area.” And one of my favorites, “He is a really logical professor.”
Dan’s service is also notable and appreciated. Examples include serving as a panelist for the “Talking about Teaching” series, where he shared his approaches to student feedback, and serving as a co-chair of the school’s grading policy task force.
Mabel W. Chipman Outstanding Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching
Qinglai He | Department of Operations and Information Management
In a nomination letter, Professor He’s chair writes…”She is early in her career, but she has already demonstrated considerable skill in designing and delivering courses for her students at the BBA and MSBA Levels. Further, she demonstrates a sincere commitment to continuing to improve and innovate her courses to keep them at the cutting edge of quickly-evolving areas. She shows great promise and we feel that her level of energy and commitment will show dividends for our department and the School of Business for many years to come.”
One of her students writes, “She was the best professor I’ve had so far. Super engaging and supportive of students, she really wants them to succeed, learn, and enjoy the content. Always available for questions and very open to feedback, although we never really had any criticism to give.”
Academic Staff and Graduate Instructor Awards
Mabel W. Chipman Outstanding Academic Staff Teaching Award
Michael Hernke | Department of Operations and Information Management
In a nomination letter, Michael Hernke’s chair wrote…”His success begins with his attitude. He truly enjoys working with students and teaching and is sincere in his desire to do whatever he can to help them to succeed, not only in his courses but in the long run. He exudes a positive energy and will never turn away a student who asks for help. He is a dedicated professional whose enthusiastic approach and unflagging effort over the years have positively impacted many thousands of students. His commitment has led to many innovations and improvements that have enhanced the student experience here at WSB.”
A student writes: I really appreciate the care with which he approaches teaching. He is one of the most accessible, prompt, and committed teachers I’ve had, and the way that the course is structured helps to make the content more engaging as well. But another wrote something absolutely priceless. “Seems like a chill guy.”
Henry C. Naiman Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award
Suyeon Jung | Department of Marketing
Some graduate students TA. This one transforms. Suyeon walked into the chaos of pandemic-era teaching, mastered the material faster than most of us can find the Zoom link, and somehow made stressed-out undergrads feel seen, heard, and actually excited about consumer behavior.
She mentored fellow TAs, racked up sky-high evaluations, taught across formats, and still managed to publish research that made headlines in the Wall Street Journal (because why not casually change how we think about selfies and service quality while you’re at it?). Her students call her “amazing.” Her colleagues call her a rising star. We call her the obvious choice.
Heejin Yoon | Department of Real Estate and Urban Land Economics
Heejin’s a Ph.D. student who has distinguished himself as an exceptional teaching assistant for both undergraduate and graduate courses. The department appointed him as the principal instructor for Real Estate 420: Urban and Regional Economics in Fall 2024. In this role, he cultivated a dynamic, experiential learning environment where students collaborated with the City of Madison Mayor’s Office to apply their learning and make recommendations on the city’s sustainable development goals.
One of his students wrote, “The most passionate <instructor> I ever had. While young, he has a bright future ahead of him. He cares deeply about each student and will make time whenever to respond to emails and meet with students one-on-one.”
All-School Awards
Student Learning and Engagement Award
Tim Carr | Department of Real Estate and Urban Economics
Tim helps students envision what’s possible through his lively classes, personalized advising, and hands-on industry exposure.
He brings in professionals, leads company visits, and meets one-on-one with students to guide their careers.
One student called her first meeting with Tim “transformational,” while another student said Tim’s welcoming approach reshaped the student’s entire career path.
Julie Duffstein | on behalf of the Undergraduate Leadership & Engagement Team
The Undergraduate Leadership & Engagement Team is recognized for their outstanding Business Badger Badges program, which is a scalable model of co-curricular learning, rooted in the UW Leadership Framework.
This team’s work engages hundreds of students each year in inclusive, ethical, and experiential leadership—and their collaborations across WSB and campus have amplified student success.
Leadership & Engagement team members, please stand if you’re here. The team, led by Julie, includes Rommel Jimenez, Danae Dorsey, Maggie Konig, Augusta Ike, Leah Lenzendorf, and Rick Collins-Kempf
Gaumnitz Excellence in Instruction with AI Award
Katie Gaertner | Business Analytics Lecturer
In her short time at the WSB, this instructor has made tremendous contributions to student learning, innovation, and interdisciplinary collaboration. She has taught graduate level courses in our MSDIA and MSBA programs, engaged worldwide learners on our edX platform, and just completed teaching a one-credit ‘Introduction to Artificial Intelligence’ course in our undergraduate program.
This course explores what AI is, how it works, and its growing impact on business, society, and daily life. She has developed a podcast series called “Unsupervised” in which she interviews experts from the Wisconsin Business School community about how artificial intelligence is transforming the world of business.
One of her students wrote: “She is one of the best professors I’ve ever had. She simplified the complicated and explained concepts in layman’s terms and allowed us to follow along while learning new technical terms. She is patient, understanding, and supportive…I was shocked when I heard this was her first time teaching because she is a natural!!!
John Surdyk | Director of the Initiative for Studies in Transformational Entrepreneurship (Insite)
John has effectively integrated AI into his MHR courses, utilizing it for both content preparation and in-class activities. He advocates for AI as a valuable tool that students should be encouraged to use. His innovative approaches include encouraging the use of commonly available AI tools, assigning persona identities to AI for student interviews, customizing a case study about a filmmaking startup, using AI for storyboarding concept pitches, and creating digital assets like logos, images, and short videos for pitch decks. These methods have clearly resonated with students, as evidenced by his high SET scores and glowing comments such as, “This person would engage with us a lot as students, this class felt way more alive that you typical lectures,” and “This person cannot improve further. They are already a GOD!”
