Courtney Friesen, Professor in the Department of Religious Studies & Classics, has received the Frank W. Beare Award from the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies.

Presented at the society’s annual meeting in June in Toronto, the Beare Award recognizes an outstanding book in the areas of Christian Origins, Post-Biblical Judaism and/or Graeco-Roman Religions. 

Friesen’s Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era, published by Routledge in 2024, explores religion and the receptions of classical theater (tragedy, comedy and satyr drama) in the early centuries of the Common Era. 

Judges for the prize commented that this is “a slim but surprisingly expansive volume, [the book] models an approach to ancient Mediterranean religion that collapses the conventional disciplinary boundaries separating classics and ancient history from biblical studies to patristics. Friesen successfully demonstrates the ongoing influence especially of Euripides on interwoven Greek, Jewish, and Christian intellectual cultures, and offers tantalizing hints of drama’s durable place in the popular cultural imagination of the ancient world. The book is well-argued, breaks new ground, and overturns the traditional view about early Christian opposition to theatre.”

Grace Faerber, who was the College of Humanities’ Outstanding Senior for Spring 2020, earning a degree in East Asian Studies and Global Studies, is now President of the DC Alumni Chapter. 

Known as the Capitol Cats, the group represents almost 4,000 University of Arizona graduates living in the Potomac Area, which includes the District of Columbia, as well as parts of Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia. The Capitol Cats host a happy hour each month for U of A alumni in the area. The September social is at Mission in DuPont Circle on Sept. 18, from 4:30 – 7:30 p.m. Find more information and RSVP here. 

Now working as a China trade analyst, Faerber received her Master's in International Studies in Spring 2022 with a concentration in International Politics at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University in DC and Nanjing University in China. Farber answered some COH questions about alumni involvement and the power of a Humanities degree:

Q: What has motivated you to stay involved in alumni activities, both at the COH university-wide levels? 

I have stayed involved in alumni activities with COH, as a member of the Honors College Board, the Recent Alumni Advisory Council, and as President of the DC Alumni Chapter to stay connected to my Wildcat roots and meet other Cats after leaving U of A. Staying involved has been a fun and engaging way for me to connect with fellow alumni but also give back to a university that shaped who I am today.   

Q: What have you gained from networking with other U of A and other College of Humanities alumni?

I have gained a community of wildcats outside of Tucson and a group of people with shared experiences to connect with while I am far from home! I have also accessed great events and other opportunities each month that enrich my life as a young professional to make me more well-rounded. 

Q: What is the Wildcat alumni network like in Washington D.C.?    

The Wildcat alumni network in DC is strong. We have a lot of alumni, and even current students, in DC, who have found themselves here for internships or jobs with the government, graduate school, or work at the many companies and organizations with major offices in the area. A lot of alumni of all ages, from recent alumni to those who graduated decades ago, who join our chapter’s monthly socials, Wildcat game watches, softball team and more! 

Q: How did your Humanities degree prepare you for your career?

My degree from COH in East Asian Studies, with a focus on the Chinese language, supplied me with the language expertise to conduct research and analysis in Mandarin, as I do in my job every day today. My humanities education in East Asian culture, politics, history and relations also gave me a strong understanding that has informed my career in U.S.-China relations and work focused on Chinese government, politics, trade and more. 

Q: Specifically in terms of studying abroad, how did that international experience become valuable for your career path?

My study abroad experience in China with the College of Humanities had a profound impact on my Chinese language abilities and understanding of Chinese politics, culture and history. It also inspired me to return to Asia and pursue a career in U.S.-China relations, driving me toward a master’s in international studies from Johns Hopkins University’s graduate program in China, a year-long U.S.-government sponsored fellowship studying in Taiwan, and my current career as a China Analyst for the U.S. federal government. 

Q: What advice do you have for current Humanities students in terms of networking while they’re still in school, and what resources are available as Wildcat alumni?

I encourage current Humanities students to take advantage all of the wonderful career resources the University of Arizona and College of Humanities have to offer to learn about potential careers, graduate schools and internships. There are so many great resources for current students, but you can still access some as an alumni too, including Bear Down Network, LinkedIn and connecting with U of A and COH alumni through your college, alumni chapter (like my DC chapter), events, the alumni newsletter, mentoring programs and more. 

Matt Mars, Professor and Interim Head of the Department of Public & Applied Humanities, has won the 2025 Ted K. Bradshaw Outstanding Research Award from the Community Development Society. 

Presented at the CDS Annual Conference on July 8 in Geneva, New York, the award “recognizes completion of superior research which exemplifies and positively impacts community development practice.”

“Dr. Mars is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research significantly advances community development. His work is widely published in Community Development and other top journals in cultural geography, sociology, and marketing,” said the award nomination from Craig A. Talmage, Associate Professor and Co-Chair of Business Management & Entrepreneurship at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Editor of the Community Development Society’s flagship publication – the journal Community Development.

Mars’ research focuses on community innovation, creative placemaking, and entrepreneurial development, including how community and market logics blend to sustain alternative production and consumption models, using diverse empirical contexts such as craft beer, local food and thrifting, Talmage wrote. 

“With nearly 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and 25 book chapters, monographs, and edited volumes, he has established himself as a thought leader,” Talmage wrote. “By integrating theories of entrepreneurial martyrdom, structures of common difference, and value narratives, he has expanded the theoretical foundation of community development. His work has resisted narrow, single-context approaches, instead broadening its relevance through comparative studies that enhance the transferability of key insights across multiple settings.”  

“Dr. Mars’s scholarship is theoretically rich, methodologically innovative, and deeply engaged with real-world community issues. His unwavering commitment to advancing community development research and practice makes him an outstanding candidate for this award,” Talmage wrote.

Since 2021, Mars has served as an Associate Editor for Community Development, handling numerous submissions and conducting over 30 peer reviews. He is also a member of the Local Development and Society Editorial Board and co-edits Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Growth.

“My work has long focused on the power of collaboration and collective creativity to foster social innovation and transform communities in ways that elevate local connectivity and belongingness, sustainability, and universal health and well-being. It is my sincere hope that award is an indication that this work is sticking and having impact on both research and practice,” Mars said. 

Phyllis Taoua, Professor in the Department of French & Italian, has been elected to serve as Vice President of the African Literature Association. 

The largest association of its kind, the African Literature Association is an independent non-profit professional society open to scholars, teachers and writers from every country. It exists primarily to facilitate the attempts of a world-wide audience to appreciate the efforts of African writers and artists. It was founded in 1974 and is headquartered at Spelman College in Atlanta.

The election results were announced at the recent annual meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. Taoua will serve as Vice President for a one-year term, 2025-2026, then become the association’s President for a one-year term and then become the conference convener of the annual meeting the following year. 

Taoua teaches courses on African literature and cinema, Critical Theory, Global Africa, Politics of Protest in Africa and the Diaspora, and Human Rights Across Contexts. She is the author of more than 60 publications including African Freedom: How Africa Responded to Independence (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Forms of Protest: Anti-Colonialism and Avant-Gardes in Africa, the Caribbean and France (Heinemann, 2002). 

She was previously elected to the African Literature Association’s Executive Committee and has served on the MLA Executive Committee of the Forum on African Languages, Literatures and Cultures. She currently serves on the Board of Editors of the Journal of African Literature Association.

“I am honored to serve the association in this capacity,” Taoua said. “I attended my first ALA conference in East Lansing, Michigan, in 1997 when I was in my first year as an assistant professor at Boston University. Bringing together creatives and scholars from across Africa and the diaspora has become a vital ALA tradition, which I will endeavor to continue.” 

The inaugural recipients of the College of Humanities GAT Award for Teaching Excellence are Antonia Kampe in the Department of German Studies, Taehyeong Kim in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, and Yuyu Zhang in the Department of East Asian Studies. 

“Graduate students are not only scholars in the making but are vital to the teaching mission of the College of Humanities,” said Chantelle Warner, Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs. “Their dedication to our students inside and outside of the classroom is foundational for our undergraduate programs, and we are grateful to the generosity of the donors who have enabled us to recognize these efforts in new ways. These first three graduate student recipients are exemplary instructors and deserve our greatest congratulations.” 

The GAT Award for Teaching Excellence is intended to honor College of Humanities Ph.D. students early in their studies who have demonstrated outstanding promise in teaching and who have demonstrated a committed and sustained effort to ensure the quality of the students’ learning experience. One award is given for each Ph.D. program in the College. Recipients of this award will receive $2,000. 

College of Humanities supporters Barbara Starrett, M.D. and Jo Ann Ellison said they are honored to have the opportunity to fund this award for such deserving recipients. 

Kampe is a doctoral student in the binational Transcultural German Studies Ph.D. program at the University of Arizona and Leipzig University. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in German and English Studies at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and her Master's degree in German Studies at Leipzig University. Her research focuses on contemporary German literature, including topics like identity, migration, memory, and Heimat. She is regarded as an inspiring and caring peer mentor to the graduate students in the department, creating a collaborative and welcoming environment. 

She began teaching German language classes at the U of A in the fall semester in 2023 and since, has continually grown as an instructor, earning trust throughout the department, wrote Thomas Fuhr, lecturer of German Studies, in nominating Kampe for the award. 

“From the first class that she taught, a beginners German language class, it became apparent that Ms. Kampe has a gift of sparking enthusiasm in her students,” Fuhr said. “Her students are consistently overrepresented in our weekly boardgame event and in monthly German Club meetings; they often go on to become minors and majors, and participate in our study-abroad program.” 

Kim is a third-year Ph.D. student in Hispanic Linguistics, also pursuing a Ph.D. minor in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching. He received a Bachelor of Social Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and holds a Master of Arts in Hispanic Language and Literature from Seoul National University. His primary research interests in Hispanic Linguistics revolve around Spanish phonology and phonetics, in particular, syllable structure, OCP, phonological processing, syntax-phonology interface, and multilingualism.

Kim has made a significant impact as an instructor of both in-person and online Spanish courses, said Cassidy Reis, Lecturer of Spanish and Interim Director of the Spanish Language Program. 

“As an adult learner of other languages, Taehyeong Kim prioritizes cultivating a supportive learning environment, or ‘Judgement-Free Zone,’ for his students and encourages them to embrace making mistakes as a natural part of the learning process, especially the process of learning a new language,” Reis said. “Invested in applying research-based, student-centered methods in his classroom, Kim enjoys teaching language with engaging games and activities that are based on, for instance, studies on the effectiveness of multisensory vocabulary learning.” 

Zhang is currently a Ph.D. student majoring in Chinese Buddhism. She received a master’s degree in Law from Shanghai University and a master’s degree in Asian Studies from UC Santa Barbara. She was a lecturer for twelve years, teaching Chinese Administrative Law. Her current research interest is Chan Buddhism in medieval China. 

At the U of A, Zhang has served as a GAT in courses including Zen Buddhism (EAS/RELI 222) and Worlds of Buddhism (EAS 160 A1). She has developed as an instructor to provide detailed individualized feedback for students, and also effectively shared her specific research interest with students, wrote Alison Jameson, Associate Professor of Practice, in nominating Zhang for the award. 

“From an instructor perspective, I cannot emphasize enough Yuyu’s lively interest in both the course material and her students,” Jameson said. “She is almost infectiously enthusiastic about her role, which was obvious to students in her detailed, helpful feedback. Her feedback was the most careful and extensive I have ever seen from a GAT, with the consistently short turnaround time so vital in 7-week courses.” 

Peter Ecke spends part of his evenings studying Polish, preparing to embark in April for four months as a Fulbright Scholar at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. 

A Professor of German Studies, much of Ecke’s teaching concerns learning new languages and cultures, and helping students to prepare for studying abroad and the intercultural challenges they might experience. One of seven University of Arizona faculty members selected as 2025 Fulbright Scholars, Ecke will see a different side of those topics during his time in Poland. 

“The Fulbright will put me back into the shoes of my students in the sense that I’m learning a new language and adapting to a new culture,” Ecke said. “It’s one thing lecturing about these things, but another to experience them again and be reminded of what the students learn as they struggle and adapt in a new culture.” 

Ecke will study in the Department of German Language Teaching and Intercultural Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University, studying what he calls a uniquely oriented department, observing classes and team teaching. The goal is to improve a general education course on intercultural communication and study abroad, which Ecke has taught to more than 1,800 students since 2013, and create a new undergraduate course on intercultural communication for majors and minors of German Studies. 

“The Polish institution has rich course offerings in intercultural studies,” Ecke said. “It’s an interesting department and I hope to learn quite a bit through my team teaching there and interacting with colleagues. At the same time, I bring in my own knowledge and expertise.” 

Ecke met the department head, Maciej Mackiewicz, when he visited Tucson in 2018. He remained in contact over the years, participated in a conference Mackiewicz organized and contributed a chapter to a book he edited. 

“We quickly noticed we had similar interest in intercultural communication and teaching German,” he said. “Over the years we were really looking for an opportunity for a more extensive collaboration and the Fulbright seemed to be the perfect opportunity.” 

An expert in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, intercultural communication, and German language teaching, Ecke led the U of A’s study abroad program to Leipzig, Germany, for 16 years and helped students adapt as they experienced new cultural environments. 

The course he has been teaching to prepare students for study abroad, “Becoming Transcultural: Maximizing Study Abroad,” will be updated based on his Fulbright research. 

The Fulbright comes on the heels of a small grant from the Arizona Foundation Board of Trustees that supported Ecke’s work on international education and an award he received from the National Endowment for the Humanities to revise another course, “Becoming Multilingual: Learning and Maintaining Two or More Languages.”

Ecke said that learning about curricula, courses and teaching methods in Poznań next year should be inspiring and help improve his courses and teaching, while the he also hopes to present at conferences and publish a paper on the project. But the cultural exchange aspect is valuable on its own. 

“Living there, I want to learn as much Polish as possible,” he said. “I’ll be a cultural ambassador of the U.S. people, show my Polish colleagues and students that we are empathetic with them in these challenging times, and engage in intercultural communication every day.” 

College of Humanities Professor Suzanne Panferov Reese will receive the Graduate Teaching and Mentoring Award in recognition for her longstanding dedication to doctoral students in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching program. 

Panferov Reese served as the chair of the interdisciplinary SLAT program from 2020 to 2025, and over the years, she has served as dissertation chair for 10 doctoral students, comprehensive exam chair for six doctoral students and as a member of 17 doctoral dissertation committees and 15 doctoral comprehensive exam committees. She is also director of the Critical Languages Program and a specialist faculty member in the Department of Public and Applied Humanities.

The Graduate Teaching and Mentoring Awards are the highest honor presented by the Graduate College in recognition of faculty who excel in their teaching and mentoring of graduate and professional students. The awardees have demonstrated a long-standing commitment to excellence in graduate education, including mentoring, professional development and a dedication to creating a learning environment in which all graduate students thrive. The award is recognized at the Outstanding Faculty Awards celebration on Oct. 16. Awardees receive $2,500, a medallion and plaque. 

Numerous colleagues and students alike submitted nomination letters in support of Panferov Reese: 

“Suzanne strives to make the doctoral experience meaningful for the students in the programs she heads. She regularly provides advice and guidance for her students who are going on the job market and continues to stay in touch with them after they have graduated to contribute career mentoring,” one colleague wrote. 

“In addition to the myriad ways that Suzanne provides exemplary mentorship, education, and support to graduate students, she also serves the University of Arizona community (and the greater community) by serving on several committees and organizations that benefit graduate students and graduate education,” said another. 

Panferov Reese was also lauded for her leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic and for strengthening ties with external and internal faculty and alumni, with a focus on building students’ venues for mentorship and networking. 

Students also spoke of Panferov Reese’s dedication, extraordinary leadership and inspiring personal touch: 

“As an international student, my travel to the U.S. to join SLAT program amidst the pandemic was full of obstacles. When I took the Proseminar course in my first semester remotely and struggled with extremely difficult time differences, Dr. Panferov Reese provided me with valuable advice on task management and morale-boosting support, without which I might not persevere throughout the tough first semester of my Ph.D. study,” one student wrote. 

“As SLAT Chair, she has demonstrated a tireless dedication to advocate for graduate students, both on professional and individual levels, by creating opportunities for students to voice their concerns, invest in their professional development through many initiatives such as the events that SLAT organizes, establish fruitful peer mentorships, and to secure much-needed funding,” said another student. 

Kirsten H. Limesand, Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate College, said Panferov Reese’s work with SLAT students embodies the ideals of faculty mentorship. 

“I have observed first-hand Suzanne’s unwavering commitment to graduate students and the success of the SLAT program,” she said. 

Alain-Philippe Durand, Dorrance Dean of the College of Humanities, said Panferov Reese’s interdisciplinary teaching and research are an example for graduate students. 

“Graduate students come from around the world to study with the faculty in the College of Humanities,” Durand said. “Suzanne’s dedication to mentoring students through the SLAT program is second to none.” 

Panferov Reese said the award is “an absolute honor.” 

“It sounds cliché but I know that people took time out of their busy schedules to nominate me. Earning that respect from my colleagues and especially from students is such an authentic recognition of connection. My students have heard me say time and again that connecting with people is so important. It’s the core work that we do in the Humanities. It is always my hope that I connect with my students and with my colleagues through my teaching and mentoring. And being recognized for just that is amazing. May we all continue to connect in these wildly dynamic times,” she said. 

This is the third consecutive year a College of Humanities faculty member has recevied the award, following Elani Hasaki, Professor of Anthropology and Classics, in 2024, and Ana Carvalho, Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching program, in 2023.