UNC Asheville Professor of Religious Studies Kate Zubko already has a few awards to her name—she received the Award for Excellence in Teaching for Untenured Faculty in 2013 and the Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Humanities in 2016. Beyond her awards, she is adored by her students for her compassionate and inclusive teaching methods, and respected and appreciated by her colleagues for her dedication to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Serving as the NEH Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, she has facilitated a 15-month SoTL working group, and supported faculty development on the history, stories, and ways of knowing of the Eastern Band of Cherokee among other pedagogical initiatives. It’s little wonder then that Zubko was selected as the recipient of the 2022 Board of Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

“Dr. Katherine Zubko exemplifies extraordinary teaching in every sense of the word,” said UNC Asheville Professor of English Erica Abrams Locklear. “Not only does she offer innovative, rich learning experience for her students, but she also creates exciting opportunities for faculty to enrich their own pedagogical approaches.”

Some of these opportunities can be found in UNC Asheville’s recently revised Humanities Readers, the texts that inform the University’s educational core. Zubko, as one of the faculty members leading the revision project, spearheaded the current research-based approach the University adopted in all volumes of the Humanities Readers for developing learning strategies, scaffolded features for student accessibility and engagement, and created a wide array of inquiry-based templates for various faculty and staff contributors to use.

“Those of us who teach using these student learning features are seeing more active engagement in our classrooms,” said Renuka Gusain, lecturer in humanities at UNC Asheville. “Kate’s love of and commitment to teaching and her openness to learning extends beyond her classroom to her colleagues—her learning and teaching community is the student body and her colleagues. And we are all the better for it.”

Zubko also worked diligently, alongside her co-editor Keya Maitra, to make sure the Humanities Readers center intersectional experiences of race and indigeneity.

“This is the student-centered work of inclusivity that is the most central guiding principle of my teaching philosophy, which is always the question on my mind now that governs my teaching decisions: Will all my students feel seen and heard?” Zubko said. 

Her efforts do not go unnoticed in the classroom. As one of Zubko’s former students, Cameron Langford Barlow, wrote, “Dr. Z, as she’s affectionately called among students, created a classroom space of inclusion and a rigorous compassionate pedagogy that helped us reframe how we consider ourselves in the pursuit of meaningful engagement with our worlds.”

Zubko, who has taught at UNC Asheville since 2009, is the co-editor of Transformational Embodiment in Asian Religions: Subtle Bodies, Spatial Bodies; co-author of Inside the Indian Business Mind: A Tactical Guide for Managers; and the author of Dancing Bodies of Devotion: Fluid Gestures in Bharata Natyam, among many other book chapters and articles. She is also the general editor of the Equinox journal, Body and Religion.

“It is an honor to receive this recognition from my peers, UNC Asheville, and the UNC System,” Zubko notes, “although effective teaching requires a strong community of dedicated people to help each student navigate the challenges they face and find ways to bring their unique voices and gifts to the world. I am lucky to be one of many within such a resilient campus community at UNC Asheville.”

The UNC System Board of Governors Award is now in its 28th year. Established by the Board in 1993 to highlight the importance of teaching, the award recognizes the extraordinary contributions of faculty members System wide. The recipients, who represent all 16 of North Carolina’s public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, were nominated by special committees at each institution and selected by the Board of Governors Committee on Educational Planning, Policies, and Programs.