The Louis and Dorina Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence
Nomination deadline 2025-26 Academic Year: April 10, 2026
The Louis and Dorina Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence recognizes outstanding faculty who:
- Promote intellectual curiosity and active learning;
- Model and foster intellectual rigor and honesty and a zest for learning;
- Develop connections between course material and life outside the classroom; and
- Are available to students, attentive to their needs, and enjoy the teacher-student relationship.
This award honors teachers who, over a period of years, have made a real difference by:
- Serving as exemplars in the Santa Clara, Jesuit tradition of service;
- Challenging their students in ways that have forced them to look at the world afresh;
- Exerting a major influence over the intellectual and moral development of their students; and
- Making an imprint that is still felt in some way years after graduation.
- 2025 WinnerNaomi Andrews, History
Dr. Naomi Andrews began teaching for the History Department in 2004 and over the past 20 years has served in every appointment type possible on campus, from Quarterly Adjunct Lecturer to Professor and all stops in between, in addition to serving in the important role of Director of the University Honors Program since 2018. Dr. Andrews's nominations included letters from more than a dozen of her current and former students, who all attested to her generosity, thoughtfulness, and genuine care for her students as whole persons. One student noted that when they think of the phrase ‘cura personalis’ they think of Professor Andrews. Dr. Andrews’s critically engaging and inspiring work in and out of the classroom reached students pursuing all manner of degrees and career paths, whom she interacted with both in her own courses and in her role within the Honors Program. Each of the nominations describe the deeply-rooted and long-lasting impacts her teaching has had on the way her students move through the world, especially as they seek ways to serve society with compassion and purpose. Strikingly, across the nominations, Dr. Andrews’s students recall how she has the special ability to create an environment in which students can find their voice, learning to communicate with intention, confidence, and care. We honor Dr. Andrews for her remarkable and deeply impactful work as an educator at Santa Clara.
- 2024 - Sharmila Lodhia (Gender and Sexuality Studies) & Nancy Unger (History)
- 2023 - Brian Thorstenson (Theatre & Dance)
- 2022 - Sarita Tamayo-Moraga (Religious Studies)
- 2022 - Korin Wheeler (Chemistry & Biochemistry)
- 2021 - Michelle Bezanson (Anthropology)
- 2021 - Dan Ostrov (Mathematics & Computer Science)
- 2020 - Tonya Nilsson (Civil, Environmental & Sustainable Engineering)
- 2019 - Diane Dreher (English)
- 2018 - Brian Buckley (Philosophy)
- 2018 - Lisa Whitfield (Psychology)
- 2017 - Simone Billings (English)
- 2016 - Silvia Figueira (Computer Engineering)
- 2015 - Shannon Vallor (Philosophy)
- 2014 - Patti Simone (Psychology)
- 2013 - Jeff Zorn (English)
- 2012 - Scott LaBarge (Philosophy & Classics)
- 2011 - Chuck Powers (Sociology)
- 2010 - Brian McNelis (Chemistry)
- 2009 - William J. Prior (Philosophy)
- 2008 - David Pinault (Religious Studies)
- 2007 - Eileen Elrod (English)
- 2006 - Phil Kesten (Physics)
- 2005 - Marilyn Fernandez (Anthropology & Sociology)
- 2004 - John Heath (Classics)
- 2003 - Linda Brunauer (Chemistry)
- 2002 - Rose Marie Beebe (Modern Languages & Literatures)
- 2001 - Bill Greenwalt (Classics)
- 2000 - Mario Belotti (Economics)
- 1999 - M. Ann Brady (English)
- 1998 - Robert Senkewicz, S.J. (History)
- 1997 - Fred D. White (English)
- 1996 - Steven C. Chiesa (Civil Engineering)
- 1995 - Robert J. Pfeiffer (Chemistry)
- 1994 - Frederick J. Parrella (Religious Studies)
- 1993 - George F. Giacomini, Jr. (History)
- 1992 - Eric O. Hanson (Political Science)
- 1991 - Eugene J. Fisher (Mechanical Engineering)
- 1990 - Carolyn A. Mitchell (English)
- 1989 - Timothy O'Keefe (History)
- 1988 - Gerald E. Markle (Applied Mathematics)
- 1987 - Theodore J. Mackin, S. J. (Religious Studies)
