FAH Academic Awards Winners 2020

The Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FAH) presented the FAH Academic Awards to recognize the members’ excellence in teaching, research and service. The Awards are given annually based on students’ and colleagues’ nominations, recommendation by the Academic Award Selection Committees and a final review by the FAH management.

We are proud to announce that the 2020 winners are here:

Best Teacher Award – Jeremy DE CHAVEZ

Prof. Jeremy De Chavez, by student comment and observation, is an energetic and inspiring teacher. He combines interactive lecturing, well designed group activities, online tasks and writing assignments to create a classroom environment which is very encouraging of thoughtful student participation and an experience of wonder, even in the face of difficult material. At UM the touchstone of teaching excellence is success in GE courses. Prof. De Chavez teaches “Sex and the Arts” and has achieved a course evaluation of “overall quality of the course with respect to teaching and learning” of 4.21 (Standard deviation 0.86) and, with respect to “overall teaching”, a 4.45 (Standard deviation 0.69). These are both extremely high scores for GE classes at UM. Comments from students serve as direct and definite evidence of his exceptional teaching performance. “The course is well designed and well organized,” said one student. Another student commented that “Jeremy is a thoughtful and engaging teacher. He motivated students to participate in discussions and appreciated every opinion that we had. I felt encouraged to speak out my own opinions in his class because of the positive learning environment he created in his class. I would give him a bonus.”  Many others followed speaking very highly of his teaching by using words such as “energetic”, “very inspiring”, “encouraging”, “very responsible, “taking good care”, “enthusiastic”, and so on, with similar praises being found in the comments on his other courses. This praise is in the context of the course being perceived as hard, due to the inexperience of the students with matters of art and high culture, making the praise even more meaningful.

Prof. Jeremy De Chavez is not only excellent at teaching the students important intellectual content but also at inspiring them to make the material their own.

Best Instructor Award – Julio JATOBA

Dr. Júlio Jatobá has been remarked by his students as a caring teacher with humor. He believes that students learn more efficiently if they are encouraged to be the managers of their own learning process and the teacher is the facilitator. As such, he has created an enjoyable and comfortable learning process for his students to learn Portuguese as a second/foreign language. Dr. Jatobá constantly focuses on student communication, knowledge of intercultural differences, creativity encouragement and interest stimulation in his classes. His teaching excellence is clearly demonstrated in his course materials, student activities and lesson designs, which have reflected his creative methods in engaging students’ learning, fully in line with his teaching philosophy.

Dr. Jatoba is a student-oriented teacher who always works closely with the students, with high average SFQ scores ranging between 4.0 and 4.5. He is a well-liked teacher with consistently positive comments by the students, e.g. “The organization of this class is very clear and interesting”, “The teacher helps me a lot for writing academic texts, his feedbacks are very useful for my work”, “A teacher who teaches translation well and with good humor. The most important thing is that you really care about students”, “he will be the best teacher in the world” etc.

Excellence in Research Award – ZHU Shoutong

Prof. Zhu has been performing excellently as always throughout his service at UM. During the review period 1/1/2019 – 31/12/2020, Prof. Zhu published three authored monographs, seven book chapters, sixteen journal articles and three edited books. Most of his publications are published in core indexed-journals or with prestigious publishers.  The concept “New Literature in Chinese” coined by Prof. Zhu is recognized as a highly influential concept in the academic field. In particular, his edited book series Centennial History of New Chinese Culture Series and Chronicles of Macau Literature were listed as National Key Publication Fund Projects. Furthermore, his article “Macau Literature in the Horizon of New Chinese Literature” was reprinted as the cover article of Xinhua Digest, which is a recognition of the impact of this article. Prof. Zhu’s leading position in the field can also be reflected by his deliveries of plenary/ keynote speeches at various international forums or conferences at prestigious universities, including Beijing University, Tsinghua University and Fudan University, etc. Moreover, Prof. Zhu has been taking important roles in many professional organizations. Prof. Zhu’s recent studies in Macau Literature and culture helped substantially promote the status and reputation of the University of Macau. It is truly remarkable that as one of the key administrators in the faculty, Prof. Zhu can be so productive in research while performing all the administrative duties. Well balanced in research, teaching and service, Prof. Zhu is an exemplar for our colleagues.

Excellence in Service Award – Katrine WONG

Prof. Wong has been serving at UM for more than a decade and has been involved in various duties at levels. In particular, her capability as an administrative leader can be reflected by the contribution she has made in the capacity as the Director of CTLE and the Interim College Master of MLC in recent years. Shouldering two of the key units of UM and leading them to a period of development requires lots of effort. Undoubtedly, she is providing excellent service to the University. In addition to the heavy duties from the two positions, Prof. Wong still voluntarily vacates herself and actively contributes to other projects. She has been managing the “English Corner” of MyUM, serving as the Vocal Coach of the University Choir, member of admission panels of PRA, MA, PhD and HC programmes. Whenever we call upon her to serve on faulty-level committees or support faculty events, Prof. Wong would say yes. As quoted from Prof. Wong, “I am always a member of FAH.” Prof. Wong also impresses us with her dedication to teaching. She insists to continue teaching in spite of her heavy administrative duties and pledges to deliver quality teaching to students. She is immensely popular among students and she is arguably one of students’ favorite professors at FAH.

Prof. Wong’s contributions also makes active contribution to the Macao community. She regularly gives outreach talks at local secondary schools, including Affiliated School of the University of Macau, Keang Peng School and Sam Yuk Secondary School, etc. Moreover, Prof. Wong as Conductor of Coro Perosi has been heavily involved in the publication of music manuscripts attributed to Father Wihelm Schmid and has conducted at least twelve concerts in Macao, Greater China and Europe over the past five years.

Prof. Wong certainly deserves the recognition for her tremendous contributions to FAH, UM and the Macao community.

Congratulations to the winners again!