UC Santa Barbara Humanities and Fine Arts honorees were recognized for teaching, diversity and student mentorship
Five faculty members and graduate students from the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts have received 2025-26 Academic Senate awards, recognizing their outstanding contributions to teaching, diversity and student mentorship at UC Santa Barbara.
The Academic Senate announced this year’s recipients during the May 28 Faculty Legislature meeting. HFA honorees include Irwin Appel, Rebbecca Brown and Kate McDonald, who received Distinguished Teaching Awards; Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, who received the Faculty Diversity Award; and Tiffany Ta, who received an Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.
Dean Daina Ramey Berry and the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts congratulate this year’s HFA recipients for their exceptional work with students, colleagues and the broader campus community.
Distinguished Teaching Awards
Irwin Appel, Theater and Dance
Irwin Appel, professor in the Department of Theater and Dance, received a Distinguished Teaching Award. Appel was unable to attend the May 28 ceremony because he was traveling internationally for theater work. He is playing the title role in Shakespeare’s “King Lear” with Lit Moon World Theater Company in Yerevan, Armenia, and Craiova, Romania, and will direct and perform as Prospero in “The Tempest” on Lazzaretto Nuovo island in the Venice lagoon this July.
“I am deeply moved, humbled and grateful to receive this award, and I wish to extend my great thanks to the Academic Senate, Faculty Legislature and members of the Faculty Awards Committee for this very special honor,” Appel said. “For 27 years, I have been continually inspired by our students and my faculty colleagues and have always looked for opportunities to create new courses and programs that blend making theater and performance with travel and the study of Shakespeare and drama.”
Appel said his teaching is rooted in invitation and connection, especially through UC Santa Barbara’s Naked Shakes program.
“My teaching is an invitation; an invitation to understanding, to ownership, to belonging and in particular, to connecting with Shakespeare’s texts in a deeply personal way,” Appel said. “Nowhere is this more apparent than in our Naked Shakes program, producing a Shakespeare play at UCSB and beyond for 21 years. The simple idea behind Naked Shakes is that the best way to study a play is to do it.”
“Together we create something magical and profound, and each year I am invigorated by the great commitment, humor, passion and dedication of all of our amazing students from across UCSB,” Appel said.
Rebbecca Brown, Writing and Literature
Rebbecca Brown, faculty member in the Writing and Literature program in the College of Creative Studies, received a Distinguished Teaching Award for her dedication to innovative teaching and student collaboration.
“As someone who deeply values innovative and informed pedagogical practices, I am honored to be recognized for excellence in teaching,” Brown said. “It is such a pleasure to teach, collaborate and create with all of the phenomenal students, faculty and staff in the College of Creative Studies; I am beyond thrilled to receive this award.”
Kate McDonald, History
Kate McDonald, associate professor in the Department of History, received a Distinguished Teaching Award.
“I am so honored to receive the Distinguished Teaching Award,” McDonald said. “Collaborating with the creative, insightful and hard-working students we have at UC Santa Barbara is the best part of my job.”
Faculty Diversity Award
Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, History
Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, professor in the Department of History, received the Faculty Diversity Award.
“I am honored to have been selected to receive this year’s Faculty Diversity Award,” Chavez-Garcia said. “Many of those I most admire for their tireless mentorship and activist scholarship have also been awardees and I treasure the opportunity to join their ranks.”
Chavez-Garcia said expanding access has long been central to her work as a scholar, mentor and educator.
“For me, expanding access and creating pathways to higher education and beyond has always been central to my mission of equity and social justice,” Chavez-Garcia said. “I only hope to continue in this work alongside my colleagues to create the social change that is so desperately needed in these times. It’s a tall order but I am ready for the challenge.”
Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award
Tiffany Ta, Music
Tiffany Ta, a doctoral candidate in music theory with an emphasis in cognitive science, received an Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.
“One quote I live by is Buckminster Fuller’s call to ‘build a new model that’s so effective, it renders the old one obsolete,’” Ta said. “Receiving this award means so much to me because it means that the people for whom I’ve been building my own pedagogical approach have experienced it as something that genuinely supports their learning and benefits their well-being.”
Ta said she is grateful to her students for helping her shape a classroom grounded in mutual learning.
“I am so thankful to my students for being generous enough to allow me the space to try new things and build the kind of classroom where we can learn with and from one another,” Ta said. “I’ve learned much more from my students than they have from me.”
Header photo: Students and faculty perform in the 2025 Naked Shakes production of “The Tempest,” directed by Distinguished Teaching Award winner Irwin Appel. Photo credit: Jeff Liang.