The Consortium of Undergraduate Law and Justice Programs has awarded the inaugural Teaching Innovation Award to Professor Danielle Rudes of the Department of Criminology, Law and Society. This award recognizes Professor Rudes and her colleague Shannon Portillo (University of Kansas) for their excellence and innovation in interdisciplinary legal studies teaching.
The Awards Committee was particularly impressed by their development of the BURST model (Building Undergraduate Research Skills and Techniques), which provides students with the opportunity to consume and produce legal studies scholarship in a capstone course setting. In this model, students conduct original research, with paper writing occurring in an iterative process in which students gather feedback from faculty and peers throughout the semester. This has been an incredible success, as it has increased student learning and resulted in numerous conference paper presentations and publications. Moreover, Professors Rudes and Portillo have been exceptionally generous with regard to sharing their research kit with other legal studies faculty, a model of collegiality to be emulated.
August 10, 2016
