Howe Center Honors College of Creative Arts Faculty with Howe Award for Excellence in Writing Instruction
This spring, the Howe Center for Writing Excellence Local Advisory Board honored two faculty teams from the College of Creative Arts with the Howe Award for Excellence in Disciplinary Writing Instruction. Recognizing their commitment to integrating writing across their programs, the award highlights their innovative contributions to writing instruction both within their departments and across the CCA.
Howe Center Honors College of Creative Arts Faculty with Howe Award for Excellence in Writing Instruction
This spring, the Howe Center for Writing Excellence Local Advisory Board awarded the Howe Award for Excellence in Disciplinary Writing Instruction to two teams of faculty members from the College of Creative Arts. This award recognizes individuals or teams from any discipline who are committed to teaching writing across time in their programs and divisions. Both of these teams have done extensive work to innovate writing instruction not only in their own departments but across the College of Creative Arts. The awards were presented by Provost Liz Mullenix at a university ceremony on March 18, 2025.
The first team award was presented to Tyler Friedman, Visiting Assistant Professor, Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurship; Sam Reenan, Assistant Professor, Music Theory; and Todd Stuart, Associate Teaching Professor and Director, Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurship. This group collaborated in the Howe Faculty Writing Fellows Program (Spring 2023) and the Miami Plan Innovation Lab to develop a new Advanced Writing class: CCA 218: Arts Thinking, Arts Writing, now taught twice by Friedman. They are also dedicated to faculty development Stuart serves on the Howe Local Advisory Board and co-led the Howe All-Fellows Change Retreat (Jan 2024), which Reenan attended. Reenan completed HCWE's six-part Supporting Graduate Student Learning Through Writing series, and both Reenan and Friedman joined the Reflection Matters series (Spring 2025). Committed teacher-scholars, they strive to develop students critical thinking and writing skills across CCA.
"Friedman, Reenan, and Stuart's efforts across time to leverage their own knowledge about and experiences with writing in the arts in combination with research-based practices for teaching and learning writing made this new advanced writing course possible their work as a team and in collaboration with the other faculty in CCA goes even beyond this one course and process. Their regular engagement in faculty development opportunities across campus to learn new ideas around teaching and learning and innovate their approaches in community with other faculty represents the teacher-scholar model that enhances the classroom learning and advising support experiences for student writers at Miami." --Rena Perez, Howe Graduate Assistant Director, Writing Across the Curriculum
The second team award was presented to Joel Armor, Visiting Assistant Professor, Arts and Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurship; Dilge Dilsiz, Assistant Professor of Communication Design; and May Khalife, Architecture and Interior Design. This group of faculty members created a cross-disciplinary team to participate in the Howe Faculty Writing Fellows Program in Spring 2024, seeking to support and innovate writing instruction across their departments and courses. They then participated in a semester-long HCWE follow up experience in Fall 2024, where they sought to build on their ideas from Fellows. In particular, they wanted to understand how faculty across CCA designed and taught writing assignments, and what genres students in CCA needed to learn to write. Individually, these faculty members have been deeply committed to learning more about effective writing instruction. For example, May participated in the HCWE 6-part series, Supporting Graduate Student Learning Through Writing.
Joel, May, and Dilge noted that numerous CCA faculty members had completed the Howe Faculty Writing Fellows Program, and wondered if it might be time to encourage innovation across the division. As a result, during the Spring 2025, they helped HCWE Director Elizabeth Wardle and Graduate Assistant Director Rena Perez lead a semester-long series open to all CCA faculty: Reflection Matters: Sensemaking Series for Writing and Thinking in the Arts. With the support of the CCA Dean and Associate Dean, Ryan Fisher and Julia Guichard, 18 faculty members met each Friday to engage in design thinking around innovative teaching in CCA. This is the first division-wide writing development that the HCWE has ever led, thanks to May, Joel, and Dilge. Sam Reenan and Tyler Freidman are among the former Howe Fellows participating in this program.
"Armor, Dilsiz, and Khalife have been intentional about creating community across CCA through not only their collaboration, but also as a goal of the CCA sensemaking series. This series would not be in progress without this team's consistent intention and motivation." --Rena Perez, Howe Graduate Assistant Director, Writing Across the Curriculum
The Howe Center for Writing Excellence is proud to recognize these deserving faculty members for their many contributions supporting and innovating writing instruction at Miami.
