Every year, the University Honors Program invites students to nominate UC Davis and UHP faculty for Outstanding Teaching and Faculty Mentorship awards. These are our 2023 winners.

Outstanding Mentorship Award: Dr. Erik Peregrine, Music Department faculty member. 

The University Honors Program provides students with the opportunity to connect with faculty and develop mentor relationships that often shape their undergraduate careers. The UHP Outstanding Mentorship Award seeks to acknowledge the dedication of faculty in being a guiding force for undergraduate students during this crucial period of academic and professional development. Faculty receiving this award have provided excellent mentorship by being responsive, accessible, helpful, and impactful. 

This year’s award recipient is Dr. Erik Peregrine, a Music Department faculty member in the College of Letters and Science. The student who nominated Dr. Peregrine has been mentored by this faculty member for over two years. This student stated the following about their mentor: 

“This professor saw something in me that I would have never seen in myself, always takes me seriously, and is fearlessly committed to my personal and professional development. They worked tirelessly on helping me develop my signature work project, a conducting practicum, something that is typically only available to master's music students in conducting programs.    [. . .] the most important lesson [I learned from them] is that [. . .] the plurality of truths I hold as both a human and musician make me an asset to the profession. With their support, I applied, was admitted to, and will be attending a graduate conducting program, which is something that no one in the music department has done in the last 20 years. More importantly, I was able to do it on my own terms, without compromising my interest in composition, performance, and cognitive science. I never thought this career path would ever be on the table for me, and this professor empowered me to make it happen. I have a mentor for life.”

Outstanding Teaching Award: Dr. Jessica Bissett Perea, Native American Studies Department faculty member. 

One of the most unique aspects of the University Honors Program are the innovative, discussion-based, honors courses. UHP students have the opportunity to engage with their professors and peers through these honors classes in a way they may not be able to in a large, lecture-style course. The UHP Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching recognizes a professor nominated by students for being an inspirational and engaging part of the honors experience.

The 2023 Faculty Awardee for Outstanding Teaching is Dr. Jessica Bissett Perea, a faculty member in the Department of Native American Studies in the College of Letters and Science. The professor awarded was chosen by students for their dedication to education and interacting with students. The nominating student had this to say about Dr. Bissett Perea:

“Over the course of 10 short weeks, this professor fundamentally shifted my worldview. Their course reshaped the ways I approached my education, my advocacy, and the impact I want to have in the world. They did all of this while maintaining a safe classroom environment in which I felt that I could verbalize the challenges and new learnings I was gaining; she allowed me and my peers to explore the world around us and ourselves. My commitment to pursue human rights and to invest in my communities existed prior to taking their course, but it became a core part of my takeaways from my education at UC Davis as an honors student with this professor. I can think of no one else more deserving of the teaching award.”