With classes spanning video, motion graphics, animation, installation art, gun violence, fashion, and more, former Chair and Professor of New Media Lei Han has been recognized for her impactful, engaging, and influential teaching style with the UNC Asheville Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award.
“Her dedication to improving her teaching, creating community engagement opportunities, and collaborating across disciplines are just some of the many efforts that led to this honor,” said Victoria Bradbury, chair of the new media department.
In each of her courses, Han fuses cutting-edge innovation with guided collaboration to challenge students to realize their highest creative potential. As a scholar whose work has been exhibited globally in places including Germany, China, Greece, Brazil, Finland, Spain, and Russia, she brings technical and creative brilliance mixed with intellectual humility to her students.
“One thing that really stands out to me regarding Han is her unyielding desire to help all of her students in making sure that their projects are the best that they can be,” said one of Han’s current students. “I have always felt supported while taking Professor Han’s classes—from her welcoming attitude and understanding to the care and interest that she takes in each of her student’s work. She embodies what it means to be an artist, mentor, and educator.”
Past students emphasize that her meticulously designed courses and engaging and practical assignments prepared them well with the concepts and skills essential to their graduate programs and their current work. Han amplifies the nature of her discipline, which makes students aware of the significant relationships between fields. Under her guidance, students explore fresh ways to modify and change the world by mastering and reinventing Technology, through which students share unique stories and human perspectives. Her students praise her enthusiasm, vitality, and the welcoming and supportive environment she provides.
Han is the recipient of many grants and awards. Her work, often inspired by nature and everyday life, explores notions of perception, memory, transience, and time. Fascinated by the influences of Eastern philosophy in Western art, especially in modern and contemporary art, Han’s recent work aims to create cohesion between spirituality and creativity, as well as make new connections between the artist, viewer, and object/subject.
Han’s teaching extends beyond the classroom through her co-teaching of Chinese painting and calligraphy through the OLLI at UNC Asheville and her active involvement and guidance of undergraduate research projects such as “Whispers of Utopia: Architecture and Sustainability at Black Mountain College,” “Gun Violence in America,” and “The Remediation of Pin-up: Evolution of the Role of Women,” “Science on the Move: the impact of STEAM education on underrepresented migrant youth,” and “The impact of the integration of video into music.” She and her research students are collaborating with Dr. Evelyn Chiang and her students on a SHIFT project: Asian/Pacific Islander College Students: Beyond Isolation to Inclusion to give voices to the AAPI community at UNC Asheville and beyond.
“Nothing brings more satisfaction to me than seeing my students succeed in their chosen endeavors. This honor is providing the fuel for the continuous pursuit of my lifelong passion of helping my students reach their highest potential,” said Han.
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)