Ask any educator what it's been like teaching during a pandemic; you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who’s had a “normal” or “easy” time.
Jennifer Joesting, Anatomy & Physiology I & II instructor and course coordinator, would readily admit it’s been a challenging time period. That’s one of the reasons why she was so touched to learn one of her students, Julia Waight, nominated her for “Most Valuable Professor” of Women’s Gymnastics athletes this semester.
“It really does make a difference. You’re feeling the strain and the load from everything happening during the semester, and to have your hard work acknowledged is really special,” Joesting said. “I just think it’s a great program that the Women’s Gymnastics team started to give that acknowledgement,” she said. She accepted her award from the team at a meet in early March with her family proudly watching from the stands.
The “Most Valuable Professor” program is meant to promote a positive relationship between student-athletes and the course instructors they interact with each day.
“It just really made me feel good that the hard work I’ve been putting in for over a year has been recognized by the students, not just as colleagues,” Joesting explained. “We [colleagues] all kind of know everything that we have to put in to make it all work behind the scenes, but to have that acknowledged by the students was something special for me.”
Joesting said it’s meant a great deal to her to know that she’s leaving an impact on her students, but she was also quick to share the spotlight, not only with her course teammate and colleague, Chester Brown, but also her teaching assistants.
“I have 11 TAs that helped me undertake all of this course,” she said. “I just feel like it really reflects back on the TAs. The MCB TAs are just dominating and doing an amazing job and are very dedicated to supporting the student learning process. This award reflects back on our wonderful TAs who have been working directly with the students the most and helping them to learn this very difficult material.”
Joesting’s TAs are:
- Selin Aktuna
- Anjana Asokakumar
- Arit Banerjee
- Eman Hamed
- Maxine He
- Sangyun Joung
- Young Jae Lee
- James Nguyen
- Ashley Otero
- Ryan Shaw
- Jisheng Wu
