Denise Bouras has been named a 2023 recipient of the The Alumnae of Northwestern University’s Award for Curriculum Innovation. Bouras is an associate professor of instruction in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Jeremy Keys, an assistant professor of instruction in the McCormick School of Engineering’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, is also a recipient.
Administered by the Office of the Provost, the award recognizes and supports faculty who have innovative ideas for new courses, methods of instruction and components of existing classes.
Associate professor of instruction Denise Bouras
The award comes with $12,500 in funding to be split between innovation development ($7,000), stipend ($5,000) and the faculty member’s home department ($500). The two honorees also will be recognized during a reception in the spring.
Bouras will use the award to connect Northwestern undergraduates in “Spanish 204: Advanced Spanish II – Artivism in Times of Political Change” with public school students in the Evanston/Skokie District 65’s “Two-Way Immersion” program, which seeks to promote fluency among students in both English and Spanish.
Together, they will learn about the history of Latin America and Spain through the work of artists who have practiced “artivism” — social justice activism through art. The Northwestern students will conduct their own research on Hispanic/Latinx artists to create content to teach the public school students, and work with them in small groups to practice advanced language skills.
Bouras has been teaching Spanish for more than 20 years and has long been interested in engaging students in exploratory and collective learning. Her teaching/research interests include differentiated instruction, second-language writing, the role of emotions in the language classroom and teaching grammar through literature.