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 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Professor Emilia Angelova to Receive Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching Top Teaching Award to be Presented to Trent Philosophy Professor at Spring Convocation Thursday, March 13, 2008, Peterborough Trent University is pleased to announce that Emilia Angelova, assistant professor in Trent’s Department of Philosophy, will be presented with the Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching at the 2008 spring convocation ceremonies. The Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching is Trent University’s most prestigious teaching honour. Established in 1976, the award is presented annually to a faculty or staff member who displays exemplary teaching, as well as exemplary concern for students. This is the 31st year that the Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching has been conferred. “I am very pleased to offer congratulations to Professor Angelova on this great accomplishment,” said Dr. Jocelyn Aubrey, associate dean of arts and science (undergraduate studies). “The recognition by her students of her commitment to teaching and her ability to engage them in their own learning is what the Symons Award is all about.” Prof. Angelova joined the Department of Philosophy in 2003-2004 as an assistant professor. Prior to coming to Trent, she taught philosophy at Sofia University in Bulgaria and at the University of Toronto at Scarborough. Prof. Angelova earned a B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy from Sofia University, and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. This award recognizes Prof. Angelova for her teaching, mentoring and support of students in the undergraduate and graduate programs at Trent University. The nominations, submitted by faculty, staff and students, speak to the individual attention she provides, her ability to provide students with the “space and confidence to explore course material,” and her ability to instil “a desire for learning” which inspires students to do “further research” and “yearn to maintain that desire.” In response to receiving notice of this distinction, Prof. Angelova commented: “I am humbled to find myself chosen for the Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching this year. It is a real honour and I am deeply moved by this news. I am grateful to the Trent community for granting me this highest recognition.” In addition, she noted: “Today’s moment is special because it conveys the highest recognition from the best judges of our achievements – our students. I find most valuable the opportunity, which is in many senses special to Trent, to work closely, on an almost individual basis, with my students. As a teacher, I am moved by the sense of reciprocity and mutual recognition that takes place spontaneously in good learning. I am continually impressed by the determination with which many of my students open themselves to difficult philosophical and social-political ideas, persevere in serious engagement with their academic subject, and work rigorously in discovering their own way to success and personal growth.” As a member of Trent’s Department of Philosophy, Prof. Angelova regularly teaches such courses as the introduction to 19th and 20th Century existential philosophy, introduction to feminist philosophy, and 20th Century hermeneutics and deconstruction. She has also taught a graduate seminar in French Feminist Theory at the Centre for Theory, Culture and Politics at Trent. Her main areas of interest are 20th Century Continental Philosophy (especially Heidegger, Derrida, French Feminist theory) and Kant, with a special focus on imagination and the aesthetic. Her other interests include 19th Century continental philosophy (Hegel and Marx) and poststructuralist ethics. Upon coming to Canada in the early 1990s, her doctoral work at the University of Toronto was on Heidegger and Kant. At present she is working on a book on Kant, temporality and the imagination. Her previous work has published on Wittgenstein and Gadamer, and she has translated texts from Heidegger and Schelling into Bulgarian. More recently she has published on Deleuze, and French Feminism. The Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching is named for Professor T.H.B. Symons, the founding president of Trent University, and is made available through the generous support of Prof. Symons and his wife, Christine. Prof. Angelva will be presented with the Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching during the spring convocation ceremonies, to be held June 4, 5, 6, 2008. She will also will be among the internal teaching award winners recognized at a special reception on Monday, March 31 at 5 p.m. in Trent University’s Alumni House at Champlain College. Award presentations will begin at 5:15 pm. All are welcome. -30- For more information, please contact: |
