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Sheedy Teaching Award

The Sheedy Excellence in Teaching Award is presented annually to an outstanding teacher in the College of Arts and Letters.

The Sheedy Award was founded in 1970 in honor of Rev. Charles E. Sheedy, C.S.C., who served as dean of the College from 1951–69, and acknowledges a faculty member who has sustained excellence in research and instruction over a wide range of courses. This individual must also motivate and enrich students using innovative and creative teaching methods and influence teaching and learning within the department, College, and University.

2019 Award Recipient

Associate Professor Jason Ruiz

Jason Ruiz is an associate professor in the Department of American Studies; an affiliated faculty member in the Gender Studies Program and the departments of Africana Studies and Film, Television, and Theatre; and a fellow in the Institute for Latino Studies.

Since 2008, he has taught courses at Notre Dame that focus on race and popular culture, Latinx history and studies, and gender and sexuality studies.  

His research focuses on American perceptions of latinidad and Latin America with emphases on race, cultural and economic imperialism, tourism, gender, and sexuality. Ruiz is currently writing a cultural history of latinidad and the War on Drugs in popular media and is principal investigator of “Latinx Murals of Pilsen,” a public-facing digital humanities project focused on public art in Chicago.

He is an affiliated faculty member in the Gender Studies Program, the Departments of Africana Studies and Film, Television, and Theatre, and in the Institute for Latino Studies. He is a 2016 recipient of the Edmund P. Joyce Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at Notre Dame.

Ruiz will be honored at a faculty reception at 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2019, in the Morris Inn Smith Ballroom.

Previous Award Recipients