Award Recipients (1991-2008)

Citations for Recent Recipients

Citations for Recent Recipients

Crisp, passionate elocution on endless novels:  for decades now, Saul’s lecture course on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky at Northwestern has been the envy of every Slavic department that wonders where our majors have gone (this Fall 2008, enrollment in Saul’s Great Novels course is 560).   A legend from the podium, Saul became a Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence in 2000. With this Award, AATSEEL is delighted to honor Saul Morson’s still evolving career, where a literary device is never reduced to moral action but also never separated from it.

Outstanding Contribution to the Profession: Benjamin Rifkin
Benjamin Rifkin hardly needs an introduction at this conference, but it is still telling to list his contributions: he was a member of the AATSEEL Program Committee for three years, 1997-1999 (covering Pedagogy and Methodology), and he was President-Elect of AATSEEL in 2001-2002, President in 2003-2004, and Past President in 2005-2006. During those years, he introduced a variety of changes that streamlined and rationalized the way the organization does business, culminating in a revision of the AATSEEL constitution in 2007. It is also amazing how much else Ben has accomplished while doing so much for AATSEEL.

With a BA and MA from Yale University, and a second MA and PhD from the University of Michigan, Ben spent fifteen years at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he directed the language program and did duty as department chair and director of the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia. From 1999 to 2003, he was director of the Middlebury College Russian Summer School, overseeing its well-known summer intensive language program and instituting, among other things, a groundbreaking and extraordinarily effective system of entrance and exit testing using ACTFL-based proficiency guidelines. In 2005, he moved to Temple University in Philadelphia, serving as Vice Dean for Undergraduate Affairs for two years before he returned to the Department of French, German, Italian and Slavic Languages as Professor of Russian. Ben is the author of two books on foreign language teaching and editor or co-editor of two volumes of essays, one of them the recipient of an earlier award from this organization. This year he is part of the winning team of authors of advanced web-based listening comprehension activities in Russian, or RAILS. He has published over twenty articles in professional journals, including SEEJ, and is an active presenter at ACTFL and AAASS (when they don’t overlap!) as well as AATSEEL. He has contributed positively to many an individual career, making time to speak at AATSEEL job interviewing workshops and writing unusually fine-grained and useful recommendations for graduate students and colleagues he has observed and mentored as language pedagogues.

Ben’s virtues range from his fine attention to detail and skills of organization, energy in gathering others and “creating synergies” in his local and broader scholarly neighborhood, and generosity to colleagues and graduate students, to his vision for the profession. Wherever he goes, he brings fresh eyes and positive changes. Benjamin Rifkin is astoundingly hard working and productive, inspiring and supportive – an exemplary Slavist, and a truly outstanding contributor to the profession.

Distinguished Service to AATSEEL: Marta Deyrup
Dr. Marta Meštrović Deyrup is Associate Professor and Librarian at Seton Hall University (South Orange, NJ), where she has worked since 1999, about the time she received her MLS from Rutgers University. She is active in the American Library Association and teaches occasional courses at Seton Hall on topics such as “Women, Culture and Society.” She has also lectured in the Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Zadar, Croatia, and often teaches summer courses on internet resources and online research at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. She earned her PhD in 2006 from the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Columbia University, with a dissertation on “The Vita Constantini as Literary and Linguistic Construct for the Early Slavs.” Marta is also active as an editor and a digital consultant. She knows nine languages in addition to English. She is an intellectual whose cultural and philological interests span many centuries, and who can draw on strong quantitative proficiency as well.

All of this makes clear what a wonderful gift it was when Marta Deyrup became AATSEEL Webmaster in 1999 and continued in that position until 2008. In 1999, having a web site was still kind of cool and unusual for an organization like AATSEEL. By 2008, a web presence is an essential part of our business, and we have come to rely on the AATSEEL site for all kinds of services and information. Marta built on the work of predecessors like George Mitrevski and oversaw the work of volunteers as the site developed for the nine years of her tenure as Webmaster. She also created and enriched parts of the site, including much-visited materials on Croatian literature, including an onsite digital collection of poetry from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. The AATSEEL web project took advantage of Marta’s knowledge and expertise in multiple ways. In 2007-8 she guided the site to its present configuration after the Executive Council decided to shift from the earlier, sometimes motley arrangements to a new look hosted by a web development company. Thanks to Marta, AATSEEL entered the twenty-first century ahead of many other scholarly organizations. In recognition of her years of patient and thoughtful work on the web site, her support of the organization and its visibility, and her generosity as a colleague, I am delighted to present her with the award for Distinguished Service to AATSEEL, with congratulations and best wishes.

Excellence in Teaching (Post-Secondary): Jane Adelman Taubman
AATSEEL recognizes the extraordinary pedagogical achievement of Jane Adelman Taubman – teacher, mentor, advisor and an inspiration to several generations of Amherst College students as well as to colleagues at institutions across the country.  Over thirty-five years of teaching Russian language, literature, film, and art, Jane has helped nurture a remarkable cohort of scholars and teachers who have left a mark on the field of Slavic studies through their publications and their own students.  And those of Jane’s students who became architects and auctioneers, chemists and political scientists, remember fondly to this day their first encounters with Russian culture in Professor Taubman’s classroom.  Whether she is introducing her students to the finer points of noun declension, tackling the masterpieces of Russian modernist poetry, guiding them through the maze of War and Peace, or asking difficult questions about the cinema of Eisenstein and Muratova, Jane is that rare combination of a demanding critic and sympathetic listener.  Many of her students still recall the vital moments of encouragement that prompted them to pursue humanistic inquiry professionally  – encouragement that mattered precisely because the standards Jane sets are so high, and her capacity for intellectual empathy so uncommon.  Her generosity as a colleague – her willingness to share teaching materials and eagerness to mentor young scholars and teachers – is legendary in its own right.  Our gratitude, our admiration, our award – to Jane Taubman.

Excellence in Teaching (Secondary): Natasha Ushakova
Natasha Ushakova is the recipient of the award for excellence in teaching at the pre-college level.  Natasha teaches beginning through advanced intermediate levels of Russian at Staten Island Technical High School, where all 900 students are required to study Russian.  She has developed an amazing repertoire of original activities that help her students learn and practice in all the communicative modes of the language.  Not only do her own students benefit from Natasha's work, but Natasha's colleagues in and beyond her school profit from her willingness to share her materials.

Natasha has a strong record of commitment to the profession. She has presented at several AATSEEL conferences where she shares her ideas and lesson plans with colleagues, has attended  teacher institutes in the United States and in Russia, including the first State Department Critical Language program in Saint Petersburg this past summer. She currently serves on the development committee for the Prototype AP Russian exam.