CSL’s Calabretta-Sajder honored with Sarofim teaching award

BY MARK PASSWATERS
Special to the Rice News

Some teachers like to wait until they are comfortable in their new surroundings before they start working to make an impact on their students. Ryan Calabretta-Sajder is not that kind of person, which played a role in his receiving the 2010 Allison Sarofim Distinguished Teaching Award. The $2,000 award is given to lecturers in the School of Humanities who demonstrate exceptional professionalism and dedication.

	RYAN CALABRETTA-SAJDER

In his first year at Rice, Calabretta-Sajder, an Italian lecturer in the Center for the Study of Languages (CSL), instituted a number of creative methods to get his students more actively involved in their learning of the language.

”I had them blogging and recreating scenes from the books we read — all in Italian,” he said. “Every time I introduced a new grammar concept, we’d use it in a song, and they picked it right up. Their level of understanding is remarkable after just two semesters. I’m sure some of my methods were looked at in some very diverse ways, so to be recognized in the end is very nice.”

Calabretta-Sajder said he found out he had won the Sarofim award at a faculty function and was surprised when his name was called.

”We were at our end of the year faculty meeting when Dr. Wendy Freeman (director of the Center for the Study of Languages) announced it,” he said. “I found out that I was the only nominee. I was very surprised and honored. There are very few places around the country where teaching awards so are important and even fewer that are accompanied with a gift.”

The idea that he had won the respect of his colleagues so quickly after arriving from doing graduate work at the University of Chicago was a humbling one for Calabretta-Sajder.

”The atmosphere in the center is wonderful because we’re housed with people on the same professional level; we get along very well,” he said. ”No matter what language we speak, we speak the language of pedagogy. We talk pedagogy and technology. We’re all very tech-savvy; I work with professors in their 60s who communicate with their students using Twitter. The CSL is well ahead of the curve technologically.”

Calabretta-Sajder also had words of praise for his students, who took quickly to his teaching methods, he said.

”They’re amazing,” he said. “They work hard, and they seem to like Italian — it’s probably a break from the engineering and science courses they’re taking. They’re fabulous. I covered much more ground than I would have been able to elsewhere.”

Calabretta-Sajder said he intends to use some of the prize money to implement new ideas into his curricula for next year and to continue work on other projects, including a study-abroad program that began this year.

”This is the first one the center has offered focusing in language in a few years, and we have three students studying in Sicily in June,” he said. ”I hope other languages will rekindle or start similar programs in the near future.”