Three faculty members named 2025 Penn State Teaching Fellows

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Beth Montemurro, distinguished professor of sociology at Penn State Abington; Carlos Rosas, professor of art and digital arts and media design in the College of Arts and Architecture; and Noel Sloboda, professor of English and creative writing at Penn State York, have received the Alumni/Student Award for Excellence in Teaching and have been named 2025 Penn State Teaching Fellows.

The Penn State Alumni Association, in conjunction with undergraduate and graduate governing bodies, established the award in 1988. It honors distinguished teaching and provides encouragement and incentive for excellence in teaching. Recipients are expected to share their talents and expertise with others throughout the University system during the year following the award presentation.

Beth Montemurro

Montemurro said her teaching is guided by the principles of sociological imagination. She wants students to relate their personal troubles to society at large and to understand the link between biography and history.

She teaches qualitative research methods and encourages students to seek out datasets that relate to their own lives. In one example, a student from India whose family was considering an arranged marriage interviewed young Indian-American women to learn more about their attitudes on love and marriage.

“This gave her an opportunity to talk with other women in the same position as her and learn from them,” Montemurro said.

In her sociology of popular culture course, she has students conduct show and tell assignments where they share a favorite cultural object with the class. She said this gives a chance for students to explore and think critically about how cultural influences shape popular culture.  

“My teaching philosophy is based on collaborative learning and course development,” Montemurro said. “Over the years, I have grown more attentive to generating course content based on students’ interests.”

At the beginning of the semester, she quizzes students about what they want to learn about in the course and takes those suggestions to heart. They often steer future lessons for years to come. She’s always learning from her students, she said.

“This semester, more than half of the course readings are new and cover the interests of current students, including TikTok, anime and video games,” Montemurro said. “I believe students learn more and are more engaged when material is not only based on their interests, but when they recognize their interests are valued and incorporated.”

Approaches like this, she said, allows her students to feel valued and heard in the classroom. She said students learn best when they feel like they’re an active part of the learning process.

“Students often come to me with issues in other classes or even personal issues and I am glad they know they can do so and that I care about them as people, not just as students,” Montemurro said.

Montemurro expects her students to think critically about society and be able to articulate that through essays, but they’re often guiding the topics. In one course, they’re tasked with doing a critical analysis of a cultural object. The topics are left to their choosing and are wide ranging. One student explored how the television show “Friends” shaped views on American life for those born outside the United States. Another analyzed materialism and consumption on the television show “Gossip Girl.” The assignment can be completed through a paper, presentation, podcast or video, again allowing students to have an active role in their education.

“This allows students to leverage their strengths,” Montemurro said.

Former students said Montemurro’s compassion, innovative teaching methods, and genuine care for students make her an outstanding educator.

“Her innovative teaching methods, including discussion-based classes coupled with carefully selected readings that were both relevant and engaging, created an inclusive and supportive environment that encouraged participation,” the student said. “As someone who experiences anxiety, I found myself gradually becoming more comfortable speaking up in class. Dr. Montemurro’s approach helped me overcome my fears and actively contribute to discussions, a skill that has proven invaluable beyond the classroom.”

Carlos Rosas

Rosas said he’s committed to promoting an environment where students can exercise their creativity. Each student has a unique voice and his goal is to amplify that voice by providing a means of expression and a background in crucial theoretical constructs.

He relies on his decades of experience in digital art and design to help his students grow technically, creatively and critically, he said.

“I challenge my students to define their relevance by investigating and transcending the traditional mechanics of art and design production and to recontextualize their work as it relates to their contemporal experience and presence in an often-discordant culture,” Rosas said. “Believing art to be an extension of the human spirit, I try to invoke a sense of excitement and passion in the creative process and instill the drive necessary to continue to research and produce throughout one’s life.”

He strives to keep his class flexible and current. Because the pace of digital art and design changes is swift, he keeps the door open for experimentation and student engagement. Art is subjective and based on trial and error, so he wants to create a space for students to investigate, learn and grow.

His lessons and lab sessions change just as quickly. He said he's constantly reading the room and reshuffling so that his students are able to try new ideas, technologies and approaches.

“I try to help students become confident in their critical and technical skill sets and equally adaptable to the inevitable change and uncertainty they will face as young practicing artists and designers,” Rosas said.

Because the tools of a digital artist are always changing, his students are learning creative expression while also gaining a technically proficient level of understanding on digital art tools. He said he needs to teach his students the tools of a digital artist while giving them ample time to explore and create.

“This can be a delicate dance as technology related creative fields are continually evolving through AI or related disruptive technologies, and students often embark on coursework with a wide range of experience levels, creative goals, personal aspirations and expectations, which can become daunting or even overwhelming,” Rosas said. “As an educator and mentor, listening, and being inclusive, supportive and equitable while also incorporating as much flexibility of coursework deadlines as possible has helped tremendously and plays an important role in informing my teaching.”

Former students said Rosas expects a lot from his students but has the patience and talent to help them succeed. They said he encouraged self-critique, collaboration and accountability, which prepared them well for their careers.

“Through Professor Rosas’s guidance, I found my place at Penn State. My education has led me to edit compelling and meaningful stories that I am beyond passionate about, including those for the world’s largest student run philanthropy THON,” a former student said. “I would not be working on the projects I am today or pursuing the future I am today without Professor Rosas. The impact he has made on the digital arts and media design major and the Penn State community is immeasurable."

Noel Sloboda

When it comes to teaching, Sloboda said he is reminded of a quote from the Irish author Sameul Beckett: “Ever tried, ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Sloboda is always thinking of things he could have done better. He said this critical approach allows him to learn as much from his mistakes as from his successes. 

“Every time I leave campus, I think not only about what worked in my classrooms but also about missed opportunities. I belatedly recognize moments when I might have included more members of a learning community by calling on a student in the back corner,” Sloboda said. “Although I have enjoyed triumphs as a teacher, I dwell on what Beckett might term ‘failures,’ with a view towards the next time I will be teaching.” 

For more than two decades, he said, he’s been refining his craft. He’s teaching his students to do the same. That’s an essential skill, he said, for a writer.  

“Beckett’s embrace of failure is also essential to writing, one of the subjects I regularly teach,” Sloboda said. “An effective writer crafts a draft, refines it, then does so again — often many times over. If my students are to become effective written communicators, they need to be able to engage in such a process.” 

To foster that environment where students in both his creative writing and business writing courses make mistakes and grow from them, he said he employs group workshops where students pore over their drafts in a peer-review process. He works with the students before receding into the background where students take over.  

“The idea is to remove pressure commonly felt about performing in the classroom,” Sloboda said. “I want my students to be able to explore new ideas and to try out alternative techniques before they have mastered them, without worrying about an evaluator who might make them self-conscious and inhibit their growth.” 

He also keeps classes engaging through low-stakes exercises. This advances lessons while encouraging classroom attendance and participation, he said.

“This approach affords everyone enrolled learning opportunities, while strengthening connections between students as they grapple together with unfamiliar concepts and new material in real time,” he said. “It also enables me to push students to grow in ways that might not be possible if exercises were graded on a traditional scale; I can ask truly hard questions that can only be responded to with rigor. Again, my rationale is linked to providing students with opportunities to be wrong.” 

Former students praised Sloboda’s ability to push them to become better writers. One said his enthusiasm for writing and creative conceptualization both guided and inspired them to work on their own pieces and novels. 

“He has been one of the most supportive, uplifting, and kind individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with,” a former student said. “He makes an effort to check in on his students, advocate for them, and help them on their academic and self-growth journeys.”