Nine Rice University faculty members received the 2025 George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching, which honors Rice’s top instructors based on votes from alumni who graduated within the past two, three and five years.
Rice News asked the recipients what advice they would offer themselves when they first started teaching.
Robert Englebretson, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in linguistics
There are two pieces of advice I wish I could give to young-teacher me. First, pay more attention to what each of the students brings into the classroom in terms of background, experiences and interests, and let that shape the direction of each semester to some degree. Every group of students is different and recognizing this helps build engagement and interest. Second, eat more chocolate — it helps with the grading!
Bilal Ghosn, lecturer in bioengineering
If I could give my younger self advice when I started teaching, I would focus much of that discussion on relationships. We often think of a successful educator as someone with excellent knowledge of the material, a strong communicator and someone who can take complex principles and break them down into simple and easy-to-understand lessons. While all of these are key to success, understanding the relationship you build with your students is likely the most critical aspect of successfully teaching anything. Building trust and a two-way street of communication is crucial in developing an atmosphere where students can succeed and understand their failures. As an engineering educator, dealing with failure is a significant part of the engineering process, both in its application and learning. Teaching high-achieving students, whom we are lucky to have at Rice, can often be challenging as many of them have not had significant academic struggles. If students can see your ultimate support when they fail or get something wrong, they will have faith that you can bring them success both in and out of the classroom. Thus, building trust and rapport with students is always key to your ultimate success as an educator.
Laura Kabiri, assistant teaching professor of kinesiology and sports medicine adviser
I wish I could tell my younger self that teaching is more than just imparting facts and information. I don’t and won’t have all the answers, but that’s OK. Students can and will find the information I attempt to provide them on their own as needed. What they will remember is how they felt in my classroom. Teaching anatomy or medical terminology is not about anatomy or medical terminology. Teaching is about imparting wisdom and common sense, building confidence and encouraging personal growth. It’s about a student believing they can succeed in STEM courses and in life. Yes, I need to know the content, but more importantly I need to be my authentic nerd-mom self and just love and nurture them like they were my own.
I would also tell myself to relax a little and quit striving for perfection, to share grace and mercy and more about my own struggles and failures and flaws so that students feel more comfortable doing the same. And finally, I would tell my younger self to enjoy every moment. This job is amazing as are the students who provide a continual source of inspiration and hope for the future.
Elizabeth McGuffey, associate teaching professor of statistics
I would tell my younger self to trust her intuition. If an approach feels like it might help students learn, it probably will; try it, even if it seems unconventional. If your gut says a student needs extra support, they probably do; reach out, even if it feels awkward. If you sense the whole class is overwhelmed, they probably are; pause and recalibrate, even if it means changing your plan. Keep your decisions rooted in care and authenticity, and your students will thrive.
Burke Nixon, senior lecturer in the Program for Writing and Communication
I know you really want to connect with your students in the classroom, and that’s important, but don’t forget that it’s even more important to help them connect with each other. Students don’t learn as much when they feel like silent, anonymous presences in the classroom. You experienced that yourself in college. Help them get to know each other, and actively engage with the course material together. Also, try your best to create a classroom that focuses more on growth than grades. Help them see that the ultimate goal of learning isn’t a number or letter; it’s about becoming a more thoughtful, capable human being.
Betul Orcan-Ekmekci, associate teaching professor in mathematics
I’d advise my younger self to start by knowing your students for every course. Once I started to pay attention to who my students are, teaching became more fruitful. Each of our students utilizes the courses in different ways, so knowing their needs can be helpful to tailor our courses.
Anna Rhodes, assistant professor of sociology
The biggest piece of advice I would give to myself, or anyone else, as they start teaching is to find ways to expand the classroom. This can be done by getting students out into the world as part of their classwork. We are lucky at Rice to be in the middle of Houston, which is such a vibrant, dynamic and diverse city. Connecting our students with the broader community brings what we are learning alive in new and practical ways. We can also expand our classrooms by inviting people in to speak about their experiences and viewpoints, providing real-world examples of the things we are reading about. Technology can also help us expand our classrooms, making it possible to connect with people across the globe. These broader conversations are not only fun, but when our classrooms are expanded, so are our perspectives.
Fay Yarbrough, William Gaines Twyman Professor of History
It’s OK to be nervous. In fact, it’s probably good. When I first started teaching, I would get very nervous before each class meeting. I worried that this meant I was not confident and maybe I never would be. More than two decades later, I still get nervous before every class. I realize now that it’s because of two things: One can never be sure about what will happen in the classroom — it’s a bit of an adventure every time — and I want do well by my students. I think these realizations make me a better teacher. Students want a teacher to be flexible in the classroom and have a sense of the space as full of possibility, and students want a teacher who cares about what the student is getting out of the experience. So now I embrace the butterflies as a sign that I still find excitement and meaning in the classroom. I hope my students do, too.
Carissa Zimmerman, director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and associate teaching professor
When I first started teaching, I was very nervous speaking in front of people, and when I first came to Rice, I felt a bit of impostor syndrome, wondering whether I was “good enough” to be here. In addition to a pep talk about how it will get easier with time, I think the advice I would give to my previous self is this: There is no one thing that defines a great teacher. Yes, there are concrete methods that facilitate learning, but you must be true to yourself in deciding which of these to embrace. There are many wonderful instructors in this list of award winners with me, and yet our teaching styles and even our policies are different. I think our approaches resonate with students because we share not only our passion for our disciplines but also our authentic selves through our teaching.