Recipients of Excellence in Teaching Awards

Congratulations to Theatre & Dance professors,
recipients of Excellence in Teaching Awards

The Theatre Season Selection group is happy to invite ALL members of the Muhlenberg community to propose projects for the 2024-25 production season!

The Department of Theatre & Dance would like to take this opportunity to celebrate the work of Natalie Gotter, Leticia Robles-Moreno, Rebecca Lustig, Jessie Dean, and Beatrice Bradley — all of whom are recipients of the Muhlenberg Center for Teaching and Learning's 2023 Recognition of Excellence in Teaching Awards.  

Congratulations to our talented and dedicated teachers, colleagues, and friends.  We are grateful for all that you continue to contribute to our Theatre & Dance programs and to our entire community. Please find the descriptions of each award below.

In Community-Engaged Teaching, MCTL recognizes…

Natalie Gotter (Dance) for her Community Dance in Practice course. The course was developed through an on-going relationship with Muhlenberg Elementary School. In this practicum-based course, students have the opportunity to teach Dance in K-12 educational settings. Elementary students engage in this program as part of their regular school day rather than after school, which reduces barriers to access for families. Muhlenberg College students in this course receive a hands-on learning experience in culturally relevant and engaged ways of teaching. Natalie articulates that this course “not only broadens an appreciation for the arts, but it also exposes students (both elementary and college) to varied ways of knowing, developing creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and engagement.

In Teaching Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, MCTL recognizes…

Beatrice Bradley (English) for the ways in which she has employed an intersectional approach in her Shakespeare studies courses (e.g., “Shakespeare,”  “Shakespeare Reproduced,” “The Othello Myth”). In these courses, Beatrice prioritizes student agency as scholars in their reading of canonical texts and frames their work in relation to Muhlenberg’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion not only in the contemporary moment but also through engagement with the historical past. She aims to “disrupt the whiteness of Shakespeare studies — a discipline that is historically and to this day predominantly white — by encouraging future generations of educators, practitioners, and critical readers to ground their methodologies in anti-racist and anti-colonialist practices.

and….

Leticia Robles-Moreno (Theatre) for her commitment to building a healthy and equitable community through her teaching, research, and service. Leticia designs her classes (particularly in her student final projects for her "Race & Performance" and "Cartographies of Performance & Politics in the Americas")  to provide students with tools to “generate networks of action as thinkers/doers, art-makers.” She fosters anti-racist and decolonizing intellectual and artistic work ethics by emphasizing collaborative processes instead of individual-centered products. Leticia describes her classroom as a laboratory to encourage students, from the moment they start their college life at Muhlenberg, to think about their own positionality within the spaces they inhabit, and she invites them to leave the classroom’s four walls and explore such spaces. Leticia’s deep commitment to DEIB through mentorship is reflected in her leadership on student initiatives that she supports, including the Unchained Theatre Collective, the Sedehi Diversity Project, and the Open Dialogues project. 

In Innovative Teaching Assignments, MCTL recognizes…

Jessica Dean (Theatre) for her Mystery Monologue assignment in her Shakespeare and his Contemporaries course. For this assignment, students are given a Shakespearian monologue stripped of context that might identify the character. Students progress through a series of activities in which they use their senses and intuition to better understand the character, their circumstances, and the emotional tone of the monologue. Jessie emphasizes that this assignment “re-focuses the work of the actor and breaks apart any stereotypes and biases we have about who can perform Shakespeare and why."

and….

Rebecca Lustig (Theatre) for her “Draping Day” assignment in her Dressed: A Global Approach to Clothing and Fashion course. After a presentation on contemporary and historical uses of draped clothing, students split into groups to move through a series of draped clothing “stations” to make their own draped garments while being especially mindful that these garments have specific cultural significance to the people who wear them. Prior to 2020, most costume educators taught clothing history based on a chronological survey that was almost entirely Eurocentric, with occasional mentions of cross-cultural connections. This version of the assignment provides more nuanced and sophisticated examples, and encourages exploration of the commonality of creation that crosses cultural boundaries.