Julie Kate Seirlis, recipient of the Distinguished Teacher Award, 2018

International Development

Julie Kate Seirlis is an Assistant Professor at St. Paul’s University College whose “transformative and memorable” teachings have inspired students, alumni, and colleagues. Nominees praise her “graceful guidance” in the development of students’ “tools for ‘critical thinking.’” Her undergraduate students value that she “constantly challenges her students to go further and deeper. She has a desire to produce critical thinkers, people who ask questions.” Graduate students are “motivated by her genuine interest and engagement with issues of environmental justice, and [are] powered by her creativity and experience in development work, research, and professorship.” An alumnus wrote: “I was able to look back and see that she had led us on a brilliant learning journey.” Several colleagues of Seirlis’s nominated her because “she has been a consistent voice of support, has connected us to many valuable contacts, and has encouraged us to bring our work into the academic sphere.”