The Institute for the Arts and Humanities has announced the 20 winners of this year’s Schwab Academic Excellence Awards.

The $3,000 prize recognizes one faculty member in each College of Arts and Sciences department across the arts, humanities and qualitative sciences. Department chairs nominate faculty for the award.

Former IAH Advisory Board Chair Julia Sprunt Grumbles (who is now a member of the University Board of Trustees) established the award in 2015 to help department chairs recognize teaching and scholarship. IAH Advisory Board Vice Chair Nelson Schwab III (’67, English) recently endowed the fund.

In one of the graduate-level courses Professor Nichola Lowe teaches, one starts with a real-life issue to solve: how to provide education for a manufacturing worker named Maddie. Lowe uses the story from an Atlantic essay that discusses labor to prime her students to think outside typical paths to education that may not be possible for working-class workers.