Posted 9 a.m. Friday, May 17, 2024
Darci Thoune receives 2024 Eagle Teaching Excellence Award
UW-La Crosse is home to many outstanding instructors who make a difference in students’ lives inside and outside the classroom. This year, UWL’s Provost Office received hundreds of nominations from students hoping to recognize their favorite faculty. From these nominations, a university committee selected seven faculty to receive 2024 Eagle Teaching Excellence Awards.
They are:
- Adam Driscoll, Sociology & Criminal Justice
- Charlotte Roberts, Educational Studies
- Tori Svoboda, Student Affairs Administration
- Diana Tempski, Finance
- Darci Thoune, English
- Sherwin Toribio, Mathematics & Statistics
- Melissa Weege, Health Professions
This is the second of seven articles highlighting the winners.
Darci Thoune, English
Courses: I work in the English Department where I have two roles — professor of English and First-Year Writing Program coordinator. This means that half of my time is devoted to teaching first-year writing and upper-level courses in the writing and rhetoric emphasis, and the other half of my time is devoted to administering the First-Year Writing Program.
Started at UWL: 2008
Background: Prior to teaching at UWL, I was a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Louisville, where I earned my Ph.D. in rhetoric and composition in 2006. After earning my Ph.D., I had a post-doctoral fellowship in writing program administration at the University of Kentucky.
Favorite part of teaching: Teaching writing means that you're often trying to convince people who have been punished or traumatized by prior writing instruction that they can become better writers. This is no small feat. However, the most satisfying moments as a writing teacher are when you witness students experiencing the power and beauty of writing for themselves. Writing changes lives — the lives of writers and the people around them — and to experience this with students can be transcendent. I frequently find myself moved by the courage of students to take risks and to do hard things with writing, even when faced with uncertainty.