Prof. Angela Upchurch receives the School of Law’s 2020 Outstanding Scholar Award and the University's 2020 Teaching Excellence Award

For SIU School of Law Professor Angela K. Upchurch, the importance of being an effective teacher was noticed at an early age.

“Growing up, my parents nurtured my desire to serve others and taught me the value of helping another person reach their goals. Through them, I always viewed teaching as a noble profession,” said Upchurch, the university’s 2020 Teaching Excellence Award, tenured and tenure track recipient.

The award recognizes faculty who demonstrate outstanding teaching, high-quality classroom performance, innovation, and a “commitment to student learning outcomes and inclusive excellence in education.” With the award, Upchurch will have the permanent title Distinguished Teacher.

In a nomination letter, four law school faculty members wrote of Upchurch’s innovative and cutting-edge teaching and assessment methods, her focus on improving student learning outcomes, and her consistently high evaluation scores with one of the heaviest teaching loads in the law school. Upchurch and her co-authors just released “Click and Learn: A Guide to Civil Procedure,” described as a groundbreaking, interactive online textbook “sure to be the model for legal education in the digital age.”

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