On Honors Day every year, the College recognizes and rewards two members of the Kenyon faculty for exemplary teaching informed by creative scholarship. The Senior Award is given to a tenured-level faculty member who has been teaching at Kenyon for at least 10 years, and the Junior Award is for either a tenured or tenure-track faculty member who is in their first 10 years at Kenyon. Get to know the 2024-25 winners. 

Tom Giblin

PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS 
SENIOR TRUSTEE TEACHING EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNER

Giblin has been a member of Kenyon’s faculty since 2009. An expert in theoretical and numerical high-energy physics and cosmology, he employs high-performance computing to study the physics of the early universe.

Hometown: Brunswick, Maine

Describe yourself in a sentence: I’m unapologetically devoted to the liberal arts, creating knowledge alongside our students and making sure that as many people as possible can experience the life-defining opportunities that liberal arts education provides. If I were allowed to describe myself in two sentences, the second would include cheese and pizza.

Teaching philosophy: It’s my job to make sure students have the tools and resources they need to learn; perhaps more, it’s my job to reduce the barriers to that learning. 

What is something you have learned from your students? As one of the very few theoretical particle physicists working at primarily undergraduate institutions, I came to Kenyon because I know how the creativity of undergraduates can help move the most important (and consequential) questions of our field forward. They constantly inform this progress and teach me things I never would have figured out on my own.

What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you? Success and good fortune come with responsibility. I hope that I have done an adequate job paying this forward.

What else would you like people to know? The College, our communities and the world face existential challenges. We see public funding for research — the backbone of our society — disappear, we see universities across the country cutting core academic disciplines, and we see public trust (and investment) in colleges and universities eroding. The liberal arts college is not a frivolous luxury: it creates knowledge, fosters and supports the creative mind, and sets us all up to confront the yet unknown. 

Iris Levin

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
JUNIOR TRUSTEE TEACHING EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNER

Levin joined the Kenyon faculty in 2019 and is an integrative biologist who studies the behavior and evolutionary ecology of barn swallows with her students.

Hometown: I’ve moved around a lot, but now that I’m in my seventh year in Gambier — the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere — it really feels like home!

Describe yourself in a sentence: Adventurous and energetic, with a dash of unapologetic confidence that leads me toward new challenges.

Teaching philosophy: Enthusiasm is infectious, so I strive to make every class one that my students are excited to come to.

What is something you have learned from your students? Patience and perspective — working with my students reminds me to slow down, listen deeply and see the world in new ways.

What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you? As a female scientist, the best advice I’ve been given is to ask myself, “What would a man do?” when faced with an ask or an opportunity, and do just that.

What else would you like people to know? Kenyon connections are everywhere. I joined the Kenyon faculty to replace Bob Mauck when he retired. Bob happens to be one of my most important mentors; he was the director of the Bowdoin Scientific Station on Kent Island (in New Brunswick, Canada), where I spent two summers as an undergraduate. His daughter, Katie, was the cook one of those summers when she was in high school. She’s now my colleague at Kenyon in the chemistry department.