Neag School of Education faculty member Saran Stewart has been named the 2024 Dr. Perry A. Zirkel Distinguished Teaching Award recipient. Stewart, an associate professor of higher education, focuses her scholarly work on issues in comparative education, decolonizing methodologies, critical/ inclusive pedagogy, and problems of access and equity in higher education. She also serves as UConn Hartford’s director of academic affairs. In that role, she is the primary faculty partner in the campus director’s office to support and guide academic matters.

The Zirkel Distinguished Teaching Award is awarded annually to a full-time faculty member in the Neag School. Alumnus Perry A. Zirkel ’68 MA, ’72 Ph.D., ’76 JD is a university professor emeritus of education and law at Lehigh University, where he formerly was dean of the College of Education and more recently held the Iacocca Chair in Education for its five-year term. He has a Ph.D. in educational administration, a JD from the University of Connecticut, and a Master of Laws degree from Yale University.

It is rewarding to learn that my students and colleagues value the learning environment I try every class to co-create for our students. — Saran Stewart

“Receiving this teaching award is a tremendous honor and a deeply meaningful moment in my career,” Stewart says. “It reaffirms my passion for ‘education as the practice of freedom’ and my commitment to fostering an inclusive, anti-racist, equity-minded, socially-just, engaging learning environment for my students. This recognition inspires me to continue pushing the boundaries of traditional teaching methods and to seek new ways to engage, inspire, and nurture my students’ curiosity, differences and creativity.”

“Dr. Stewart is a critical researcher who focuses on the impacts of race and racism in three ways: across global contexts, through learner-centered pedagogies, and intersectional analysis of the racialized and gendered experiences of faculty and staff,” wrote nominator Frank Tuitt, Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer at UConn, and professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs. “The basis of Dr. Stewart’s scholarship draws from an international comparative lens and many critical frameworks. Not surprisingly, Dr. Stewart’s scholarship has significantly contributed to the decolonial and anti-racism discourse in higher education.”

“It’s important to recognize excellence in teaching, as the preparation, reflection, dedication, grit, and fortitude it takes to not only teach difficult content but deliver it in a way that allows for critical dialogue to be explored is no easy feat,” Stewart says. “It is rewarding to learn that my students and colleagues value the learning environment I try every class to co-create for our students.”

In addition to being an excellent scholar who uses meticulous detail and in-depth analysis in her work, Stewart is known as an outstanding teacher with a fantastic ability to translate complex theoretical principles and concepts into accessible language for diverse groups of individuals and stakeholders.

“Dr. Stewart has created an environment where, when her students learning has been stretched, she has moved the needle in the development of critical consciousness,” wrote nominator Laura Burton, professor and head of the Department of Educational Leadership.

These skills were most recently displayed when she co-taught Critical Race Theory in Higher Education last year.

“In almost every class session, I witnessed her transform the space, leaving every student in a passionate state of awe,” Tuitt wrote. “Her energy, brilliance, and steadfast commitment to creating an inclusive and equitable learning environment inspired a deep hope for what bell hooks refers to as engaging in education as practice freedom.”

In almost every class session, I witnessed her transform the space, leaving every student in a passionate state of awe. — Frank Tuitt

In 2018, Stewart and two other authors were informed that their article “Transforming the Classroom at Traditionally White Institutions to Make Black Lives Matter,” which was featured in the 2017 edition of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Education Development, received some of the journal’s highest downloads in the 12-months after its online publication.

Further, three of Stewart’s publications have been nominated and selected for awards, including her 2019 edited book “Decolonizing Qualitative Approaches for and by the Caribbean,” which was chosen as the 2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title.

She is a Salzburg Global Fellow and has received several other awards, including the 2019 Vice Chancellor Award for Excellence from the University of the West Indies and the 2018 African Diaspora Emerging Scholar award by the Comparative and International Education Society. She is editor of Decolonizing Qualitative Methodologies for and by the Caribbean (Information Age Publishing) and co-editor of Race, Equity, and the Learning Environment: The Global Relevance of Critical and Inclusive Pedagogies in Higher Education (Stylus).

Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, Stewart has over 15 years of experience as a worldwide higher education administrator, professor, and scholar-activist. Stewart holds a BA (English and international studies), MA (international administration), MBA (marketing), and Ph.D. in higher education with a concentration in diversity and higher learning and a specialization in international education development.

Neag School alumni, current students, and faculty were invited to nominate a faculty member for the annual Zirkel Distinguished Teaching Award, and a committee selected the recipient. Previous awardees include Danielle Fillipiak in 2023, Tamika LaSalle in 2022, Milagros Castillo-Montoya in 2020, Jennie Weiner in 2019, and D. Betsy McCoach as the inaugural recipient in 2018.

Stewart officially received the award during the year-end Neag School Meeting on May 3, and her name will be added to the award plaque in the Neag School Dean’s Office.