Four College of Arts & Letters faculty have been selected as this year’s recipients of the Fintz Award for Teaching Excellence in the Arts and Humanities in recognition of their exemplary Integrative Arts and Humanities (IAH) instruction.
Presented each spring by the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities (CISAH), the Fintz Award, which is student nominated, recognizes outstanding faculty who, in keeping with the goals of integrative studies, engage students in arts and humanities ways of knowing while helping them develop critical thinking and effective communication skills. Recipients are selected by a Faculty Advisory Committee.
The Fintz Award was established in 2002 through an endowment created by Professor Emeritus Ken Waltzer, former CISAH Director, in honor of his father, Irving “Fintz” Waltzer. Wendy Wilkins, the College of Arts & Letters Dean at the time of the award’s creation, wrote that “Irving (Fintz) Waltzer was a teacher of music and mentor of the young who knew committed teaching can often ignite a spark in students.”
The 2025-2026 Fintz Award recipients are:
This year’s recipients received an award stipend of $950 and were recognized during the IAH Spring Awards Luncheon on April 10 in the MSU Library Green Room.
Jonathan Choti
Jonathan Choti is an Associate Professor of African Languages and Cultures in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures. He teaches Swahili language courses and several courses on African cultures. His Fintz-recognized course, African Cultures, Languages, and Literature (IAH 211A), centers on an individual class project that takes learning beyond the classroom. Students choose their own topics, interview someone from Africa, and build a scholarly product from the ground up — designing scope, collecting data, and presenting their findings.
“This task,” Choti said, “compels them to be innovative in designing their projects as they develop the scope of their projects, the title, outline, objectives, and interview questions/data collection tools.”
For Choti, that kind of inquiry reflects what general education in the arts and humanities is for.
“IAH teaches ‘how to be human,’ and prepares students to apply their wide range of knowledge and skills to build a fair, inclusive society that embraces all people.”
Dr. Jonathan Choti
“IAH teaches ‘how to be human,'” he said, “and prepares students to apply their wide range of knowledge and skills to build a fair, inclusive society that embraces all people.”
Members of the Faculty Advisor Committee who reviewed the nomination materials, were impressed by the way Choti’s IAH course engages students with challenging topics with sensitivity and agency, particularly through the interview assignment.
Nerli Paredes Ruvalcaba
Nerli Paredes Ruvalcaba is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy whose research is grounded in community needs and oriented toward social justice. Her Reproductive Justice Movements in Latin America (IAH 203) course centers on a semester-long Engaged Reproductive Justice Project — a scaffolded series of assignments that asks students to apply course concepts to a topic of personal significance, then design a concrete proposal for community action. Paredes Ruvalcaba values the project partly because it makes her a more responsive instructor.
“It allows me to learn about the topics students are interested in from early in the semester,” she said, “which in turn informs how I plan my classes and conversations with students in ways that consider their special interests.”
“One of the central roles of my IAH class is to not only provide critical information in the arts and humanities related to reproductive justice, but to also facilitate a space in which each student feels a strong sense of belonging.”
Nerli Paredes Ruvalcab
The project closes with a final reflection that celebrates the classroom learning community. She sees that sense of community as central to what IAH can offer.
“One of the central roles of my IAH class is to not only provide critical information in the arts and humanities related to reproductive justice, but to also facilitate a space in which each student feels a strong sense of belonging and has the opportunity to experience the joy of co-creating knowledge and to imagine more just futures in community.”
Aaron Schultz
Aaron Schultz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy whose work explores Buddhist ethics, the justification of punishment, and the moral and political dimensions of technology — including artificial intelligence, the internet, and propaganda. His Fintz-recognized Media, Propaganda, and Justice (IAH 231B) course asks students to select a piece of media and analyze it as propaganda using two theoretical frameworks from the course. The project culminates in peer review with students evaluating each other’s presentations and providing structured feedback.
“Students encounter a range of analytical approaches, demonstrated by their peers, which reinforces the idea that critical inquiry is a collaborative process grounded in shared intellectual tools,” Schultz said.
More broadly, he views the humanities as the place where students encounter the questions that matter most.
“I often tell my students that my goal is not to produce more professional philosophers but to encourage more people to think philosophically.”
Dr. Aaron Schultz
“I often tell my students that my goal is not to produce more professional philosophers,” he said, “but to encourage more people to think philosophically.”
The questions he has in mind are ones he sees running through all of his courses: “What does it mean to live a good life? What does it mean to be a good citizen? What is justice, and how can we contribute to a more just world? What do we owe one another?”
Laura Yares
Laura Yares is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies whose work explores how ideas about religion are created and circulated in educational settings, with particular attention to Jewish history and American culture. Her Fintz-recognized Judaism in America (IAH 211C) course features a distinctive midterm assignment: students read a children’s book about a historical figure or Jewish American context, then write a letter to an imaginary child who has been assigned that book in school. The task asks them to consider what the book teaches and what it leaves out — and to imagine the letter as addressed to a specific child with a specific identity.
“How might a student from a different minoritized community read this story, or a student who is Jewish, or a student who is part of the white Christian majority?” Yares wrote, describing the questions she wants students to sit with. “Students develop critical empathy skills through this exercise, and they do an amazing job of deeply personalizing these letters. They write them out by hand, and they are always really endearing.”
For Yares, that kind of critical reading is what general education in the humanities is built for.
“We all become better citizens when we learn that our ways of knowing are shaped by our own contexts, and that others speak from other kinds of worldviews and cultural belongings.”
Dr. Laura Yares
“We all become better citizens when we learn that our ways of knowing are shaped by our own contexts, and that others speak from other kinds of worldviews and cultural belongings,” she said.
She also sees it as increasingly urgent in the present moment: “As we move into an age increasingly shaped by generative AI, I think this is a major critical framework for students to be exposed to.”
By Austin Curtis
