Faculty and Staff News

Janice Laakso Receives UW Tacoma Distinguished Teaching Award

Janice Laakso, Associate Professor in the Social Work Program at the University of Washington Tacoma, has been honored with the 2008-2009 UW Tacoma Distinguished Teaching Award. 

Dr. Laakso's passion for social justice and excellence in teaching are well known by her students and peers alike.

The selection committee noted “her leadership and sustained excellence in designing and delivering a meaningful curriculum, her success in preparing students for their careers and her overall impact on their lives, her focus on teaching advocacy skills that empower students to advance social justice, and her ongoing development as a teacher, including international experience that has informed her pedagogy.”

The applied-learning legislative advocacy group project in one of her courses is designed to expose students to contemporary social policy and prepare them for their advocacy at the legislature to influence new policy directions. For five consecutive years Dr. Laakso's students have won a national social work competition, sponsored by the Council for Social Work Education, entitled "Influencing State Policy.”

The selection committee cited “another impressive aspect of Dr. Laakso's excellence in teaching ─ her involvement in curriculum development. She created courses for the MSW program as it was entering its second year and helped develop the new BASW program” at the UW Tacoma.

A recognition ceremony to honor Dr. Laakso for the accomplishments represented by her award is being held this spring.