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Professors Schwartz and Wonsowicz Honored with UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award Two UCLA Law professors were selected as recipients of UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award this year: Professor Joanna Schwartz and Lecturer in Law Pavel Wonsowicz. The award represents the highest level of attainment of academic and professional excellence at UCLA and honors individuals who bring integrity and innovation to the art of teaching. Professor Schwartz is an influential teacher of civil procedure and civil rights litigation. She offers both first-year Civil Procedure and the specialized upper-level Civil Rights Litigation Clinic, and she has taught several courses in UCLA Law’s clinical program. She has served as faculty advisor to the law school’s student-led El Centro Legal Clinics, and she has taught the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy first-year seminar, which is an essential component of the law school’s public interest curriculum. Most recently, Professor Schwartz was instrumental in designing a groundbreaking new first-year law course on the lawyer-client relationship. Professor Wonsowicz has won the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching at UCLA School of Law and has been
named Professor of the Year at both the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s Boyd School of Law and Vermont Law School. His teaching methods have been highlighted in The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Wall Street Journal. He is the director of UCLA School of Law’s Academic Support Program and teaches Evidence and Constitutional Law I. Professor Wonsowicz is president of the Association of Academic Support Educators, has served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ Academic Support Section and lectures nationally on bar exam-related topics.
Professor Spillenger Honored with Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching Professor Clyde Spillenger was honored with the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching at the 36th Rutter Award Presentation Ceremony in March. The award, established by William “Bill” Rutter, is presented annually to a professor who has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to teaching. “From the praise his students have bestowed upon him in their teaching evaluations, it is clear that Professor Spillenger’s skill at presenting material with great clarity and his passion for teaching makes for a meaningful academic experience. Combined with his personable and witty demeanor, his teaching sparks enthusiasm in his students,” former Dean Rachel F. Moran said at the award ceremony.
After thanking and accepting the award from Paul Rutter ’78, Professor Spillenger thanked his students and reflected on his time teaching at UCLA Law. He described his first year of teaching, including his first day, after which he was told by a student that his gesticulating was distracting. He called this just one of the many acts of generosity bestowed upon him by his students over the years. Professor Spillenger also talked about how he brings music into his teaching in order to make learning a dynamic experience. Professor Spillenger has been a member of the UCLA Law faculty since 1993, and he teaches Civil Procedure, Conflict of Laws and American Legal History. Before joining the UCLA Law faculty, he was a fellow in American Legal History at the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School. In addition to his teaching and scholarship, he is a founding member of the faculty’s rock ’n’ roll trio, The Usual Suspects. FALL 2015 | UCLA LAW MAGAZINE 5