Heinz
 “I have been immensely impressed with Teresa’s devotion to teaching, her deep commitment to her students and her passion for pedagogy.” —Patricia Andrews, professor and director of the Preparing Future Faculty Program, IU Bloomington |
Lieber Memorial Teaching Associate
Award
Teresa Lynn Heinz would be the first to acknowledge the power of a good teacher.
In 2000, as a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Communication and Culture, Heinz was herself good, with higher than average ratings on her student evaluations and commendations for being “clear and respectful” in the classroom, as well as “friendly and outgoing,” and for providing “awesome” feedback and leading “thorough and interesting discussions.”
One year later—as students, colleagues and mentors all agree—she had transformed herself into a great teacher.
The impetus came, naturally enough, from a teacher. Professor Jane Goodman, who was course director for one of the classes Heinz was teaching, observed her in the classroom and offered what Heinz describes as an “honest” assessment of her performance.
In response, instead of settling for making a few cosmetic improvements, Heinz decided to dive into the pedagogical literature, seek advice from other teachers and make herself into the excellent instructor she knew she could be.
Goodman was not the first teacher whose influence on Heinz proved life-changing. A first-generation college student who attended Oberlin College on an academic scholarship, Heinz credits an exceptional high school English teacher with recognizing both her passion and her potential for academic work.
Heinz is one of the first graduate students to earn the Department of Communication and Culture’s Certificate of Pedagogy, and she has worked with new graduate teaching assistants as part of the department’s Peer Mentoring Program. Her commitment to teaching has earned her a departmental teaching award and selection as a Future Faculty Teaching Fellow.
Before beginning the doctoral program in communication and culture at IU, Heinz worked for several newspapers and earned a master’s degree in journalism.
Heinz’s academic path, like her pedagogical style, is deeply grounded in personal experience. Her research, which focuses on media representation of marginalized groups, particularly the homeless, is grounded in her own family’s homelessness in the late 1980s. “When people in my hometown reacted negatively to our situation,” she said, “I began to wonder why others are sometimes threatened by homelessness.”
Heinz is committed to making connections: between her research and her teaching, between the “real world” and the academy and, most of all, between herself and her students.
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