New Drazek Award Winners Are Known for Dynamic Engagement with Students

Katy Koch, a longtime University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) professor with the Europe Division, last year spent up to 20 hours each week bouncing across a Middle East desert in a military bus. She shuttled over serious potholes and bided her time when the bus yielded to camel traffic as she traveled from one military installation to another to teach writing, literature, public speaking, communications and mythology courses.

Koch didn't really need to make the back-and-forth commute-she was allowed to anchor herself at a single military location and teach her students at remote bases via Zoom-but that isn't how she wanted to engage with her servicemember students.

"It makes a huge difference to me to connect with the students," she said. "I love to teach, but one of the most enjoyable aspects of teaching for me is getting to know the students on a personal level-having fun with them, joking around, having discussions that allow them to open up."

Koch is among the 10 UMGC professors selected for this year's Stanley J. Drazek Teaching Excellence Award, the highest recognition UMGC bestows on faculty members. Nominations for the awards, which carry a $1,200 honorarium, come from students. The 2024 award winners teach across a broad spectrum of disciplines, from history to psychology, from biology to cybersecurity, yet one thing unites them. They are all described as being especially understanding of their students' complicated lives, which can include full-time jobs, family, military deployments, illnesses, relocations or a combination of those things.

For most of this year's Drazek winners, that empathy comes from experience. Several of the faculty members served in the military or come from military families. Some were adult learners. Some have even been UMGC students themselves. Many of them have won other recognitions for their teaching and student engagement.

"The Drazek Teaching Awards represent a prestigious recognition that underscores an educator's exceptional commitment to teaching excellence and student success at UMGC," said Stefan Gunther, associate vice president for faculty affairs. "They highlight the recipient's innovative teaching methods, dedication to fostering an engaging learning environment and their ability to inspire and mentor-one student at a time."

Koch said her nomadic early life in a military family may be the reason teaching at UMGC, with its global reach and connections to the military, is her dream job.

"I tell my students the stories my dad shared. In communications classes, I use a lot of his lessons, including when we talk about unconscious bias. His military service was the first time he worked with people from the Deep South, from inner cities, from areas across the country… and he said that experience changed his world view," Koch explained. "He raised his own kids to be very open minded."

Koch has taught at UMGC since 2004. She started in Germany, but much of her tenure has been in the Mideast, including Afghanistan, Kuwait and Qatar.

"My students are great students, the best students I've ever taught," she said, noting that her students complete coursework while living under challenging conditions, from sandstorms to incoming missiles.

The Drazek Award coincides with the end of Koch's full-time career at UMGC. She officially retires on July 31. Despite her relocation to the states to be close to family, she hopes to continue teaching part-time for UMGC at the Travis Air Force Base in California. She will be splitting her time between New Hampshire and California.

"I have lots of frequent flyer miles banked, so I think it can be done," she said.

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