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Law School faculty members honored for teaching excellence

May 30, 2017

Six Penn Law faculty were recognized for their teaching this year.
Six Penn Law faculty were recognized for their teaching this year.
Six members of the University of Pennsylvania Law School have received teaching awards for the 2016–17 academic year.

Six members of the University of Pennsylvania Law School have received teaching awards for the 2016–17 academic year. They are: Jean Galbraith (Harvey Levin Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence), William Ewald (LLM Teaching Award), Catherine Struve (A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Course), Shyamkrishna Balganesh (Robert A. Gorman Award for Excellence in Teaching), and Judge Kent A. Jordan and Matthew Pearson L’05 (Adjunct Teaching Award).

 

Jean Galbraith receives the Harvey Levin Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence

By democratic vote, the Penn Law 2017 graduating class selected Jean Galbraith to receive the Harvey Levin Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence. Jean Galbraith is an Assistant Professor of Law and a scholar of U.S. foreign relations law and public international law. Her work focuses on the allocation of legal authority among U.S. governmental actors and, at the international level, between domestic actors and international regimes. This year, she taught Contracts and International Legal Regimes.

What the students say:

  • “Professor Galbraith is excellent at applying the Socratic Method and pushing students to evaluate and defend positions that they put forward in class. She is extremely effective in challenging people on both sides of the issues that she raises in class and in that showcasing the variable nature of legal analysis and debate.”
  • “Professor Galbraith is the best professor I had this semester and one of the best throughout my educational experience. She knows how to engage with students and raises the perfect questions to stimulate discussion. She exudes confidence.”

 

William Ewald receives the LLM Teaching Award

William Ewald is Professor of Law and Philosophy and an internationally recognized scholar in legal philosophy and comparative law. He is the author of an often-cited article in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review on the philosophical foundations of comparative law, “What Was it Like to Try a Rat?” and is currently at work on a book, The Style of American Law, that examines, from a comparative perspective, the distinctive character of American law. This year, he taught Political Philosophy of the Founders and Comparative Law: Intro to the Civil Law Systems.

What the students say:

  • “Engaging, well-prepared lectures that wove in exciting current events.”
  • “Prof. Ewald did a great job of getting at the big questions and current debates that are at the forefront of this field.”

 

Catherine Struve receives the A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Course

Professor of Law Catherine Struve teaches and researches in the fields of civil procedure and federal courts. She serves as Co-Reporter to a Third Circuit task force that has prepared model jury instructions for use in civil cases, and she served from 2006 to 2015 as Reporter to the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules. This year, she taught Civil Procedure, Advanced Problems in Federal Procedure, and Federal Indian Law.

What the students say:

  • “Professor Struve is thoughtful, considerate, and eminently accessible. You couldn’t ask for a better professor.”
  • “Professor Struve is a superb instructor. Her questions are incisive and contribute to an excellent intellectual environment. She is also very balanced about her questioning and this allows students to take independent positions.”

 

Shyamkrishna Balganesh receives the Robert A. Gorman Award for Excellence in Teaching

Professor of Law Shyam Balganesh’s scholarship focuses on understanding how intellectual property and innovation policy can benefit from the use of ideas, concepts, and structures from different areas of the common law, especially private law. He is also Co-Director of the Center for Asian Law. This year, he taught Copyright and Intro to Intellectual Property Law and Policy, and co-taught the Innovation Law Scholarship Colloquium with Christopher Yoo.

What the students say:

  • “Professor Balganesh is passionate about the class material and it comes across through his teaching methods. His cold calls are complex, but he really encourages to students to think about the material in a complex manner, and really think like a lawyer to develop critical reasoning skills.”
  • “Professor Balganesh really knows the material. Seriously. Sometimes it is almost scary the level of detail he can remember about all of the cases. He is also a fantastic teacher. His classes are very well structured, highly organized, and proceed logically from start to finish. I really learned a lot in this class.”

 

Judge Kent A. Jordan and Matthew Pearson L’05 receive the Adjunct Teaching Award

Kent A. Jordan was appointed in 2006 by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Prior to that appointment, Judge Jordan served as a United States District Judge for the District of Delaware from 2002–2006.

Matthew Pearson focuses his practice on intellectual property litigation. He earned a PhD from Cornell University in biochemistry, molecular and cell biology in 1999 and a JD from Penn Law in 2005. He served for two years as a law clerk to the Honorable Kent A. Jordan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

This year, Jordan and Pearson co-taught Patent Litigation.

What the students say:

  • “Both instructors were engaging and highly knowledgeable. Taking the course was worth it just to interact with them and to glean their knowledge of the subject matter.”
  • “Offered great insight into both the legal and real-world practicalities of practicing in patent litigation — extremely helpful for those considering entering this area.”