The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign presents Campus Awards for Excellence in Instruction each year to exceptional faculty and staff members, graduate teaching assistants, and advisors campuswide. The recipients were honored at a March 25 ceremony.
Awardees are cited for sustained excellence and innovation in undergraduate and graduate teaching, undergraduate and graduate advising and mentoring, online teaching, and research guidance. The Office of the Provost sponsors the awards. Learn more about each honoree as excerpted from their nominators.
EXCELLENCE IN GUIDING UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH
Political science professor Avital Livny is one of the recipients of the Campus Award for Excellence in Guiding Undergraduate Research, which is designed to foster and reward excellence in involving and guiding undergraduate students in scholarly research.
Livny believes that research empowers students to find their voices, build confidence, and collaborate meaningfully. To make research accessible to all students, she redesigned the curriculum into a sequence that combines methods training with faculty apprenticeships. She also revised the senior honors seminar, creating new structures that support students as they develop thesis projects.
SPECIALIZED FACULTY
As a teaching professor in nuclear, plasma, and radiological engineering, Leon Liebenberg fosters systems of literacy, social awareness, and creative confidence through guided self-directed learning, systems thinking, and whole-brain engagement.
Students express ideas through diverse formats, including zines, infographics, narratives, policy papers with companion blog posts, and performance-based work, encouraging both analytical and imaginative thinking while developing the ability to communicate complex sustainability challenges in meaningful and impactful ways. Prof. Liebenberg is also a co-founder and coordinator of the “Reimagine Our Future” undergraduate sustainability competition: https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/8787/1964191900
Based on Illinois News Bureau Announcements, April 6, 2026, 8:47 am by Maeve Reilly, Writer/Editor https://news.illinois.edu/campus-awards-honor-excellence-in-instruction-2/
