Congratulations to the 2025 Teaching Award Recipients

Ana Cecilia Iraheta, Ph.D., associate professor of Spanish, is the recipient of the 2025 Innovation in Teaching Excellence Award. This annual award honors faculty members who have implemented innovative teaching approaches that enhance student learning and success. The Center for Teaching Excellence’s Advisory Group administers the award. 

Dr. Iraheta teaches courses to learners of Spanish as a second language and to heritage learners and also teaches several linguistics courses. Her areas of research interest includes the use of technology to support language teaching and learning, critical service-learning, socio-pragmatics, and language variation and identity.  

Dr. Iraheta attempts to have her courses reflect her research interests through projects in which students apply knowledge in concrete and beneficial ways. Specifically, her class projects are intended to prepare and challenge students to step out of their comfort zone by having meaningful conversations with native Spanish speakers, by collaborating in mutually beneficial projects with the surrounding communities, or by collaborating in interdisciplinary projects on campus. Examples of these engaged learning opportunities include creating bilingual websites for Hispanic small business owners; writing, editing, and publishing online bilingual stories portraying Latinx characters as heroes; engaging in reading sessions with young Latinx children at local community libraries; and translating informational texts for an exhibition at PC Galleries.

In the fall of 2025, Dr. Iraheta will incorporate a class project that seeks to leverage artificial intelligence and virtual reality to enhance Spanish proficiency, which she hopes will help students be prepared to take part in technological innovations in an ethical way while improving their second language abilities. 

Dr. Iraheta’s nominator describes her teaching as follows: The nature of these initiatives serves as a testament to Professor Iraheta’s constant innovation and her commitment to thoughtful pedagogies that engage local communities and Spanish-speaking communities abroad. Her deep dedication to her students and to her field of study makes her a truly distinguished educator. 

Congratulations to Dr. Iraheta on this prestigious award! 

Zachariah Wheeler, Ph.D., visiting assistant professor of political science, is the recipient of the 2025 Teaching Excellence by a Visiting and Practitioner Faculty Award.  

Dr. Wheeler specializes in American political and cultural development. His work combines elements of political science, media studies, and sociology to study the relationship between social class, politics, and popular culture in the post-industrial United States. His forthcoming book, Emerging Majorities, focuses on how class divisions tied to education have shaped the Democratic and Republican parties since the 1970s.

Since starting at PC in 2022, Dr. Wheeler has taught a range of political science and communication courses, including Intro to Communications, Mass Media & Politics, Media & Society, and Contemporary Political Theory. He also taught two senior capstones, one focused on Generations in American Politics and another on theories of taste and memory in media. 

Dr. Wheeler received his doctorate in political and cultural thought from Virginia Tech and his master’s degree in cinema studies from NYU.  

Congratulations to Dr. Wheeler on this award!  

Christopher Berard, Ph.D., adjunct professor of humanities, is the recipient of the 2025 Recognition for Teaching Excellence by Adjunct Faculty Award. From 2017–23, Dr. Berard served as a visiting assistant professor of English at Providence College. He has continued to teach in the Development of Western Civilization and Humanities Programs, where he offers special topics courses on Arthurian legend and medieval studies.

A 2007 Providence College graduate, Dr. Berard earned his doctorate in medieval studies from the University of Toronto. He specializes in Arthurian literature, English political history, and Latin and vernacular chronicles from the High and Late Middle Ages (c.1100–1400).

His 2019 book, Arthurianism in Early Plantagenet England: from Henry II to Edward I, is an interdisciplinary study of how five successive post-conquest kings of England (1154–1307) emulated and otherwise used the legendary King Arthur of Britain for political gain and how this activity has in turn impacted depictions of King Arthur in literature.

Congratulations to Dr. Berard on this award!