Prof. Ann Burkhart to Receive University’s Graduate-Professional Teaching Award

Ann Burkhart, the Curtis Bradbury Kellar Professor of Law, has been chosen to receive a 2016 University of Minnesota Award for Outstanding Contributions to Postbaccalaureate, Graduate, and Professional Education. This honor, also known as the Graduate-Professional Award, is given to no more than eight University professors each year. Recipients are chosen for excellence in instruction; involvement in students’ research, scholarship, and professional development; development of instructional programs; and advising and mentoring of students. Burkhart is the third member of the Law School faculty to receive the award since its establishment in 1999; the others are Professors John Matheson (2008) and Dale Carpenter (2014).
 
“I was delighted to learn that Professor Burkhart had been selected for the Graduate-Professional Award,” said Dean David Wippman. “She has richly earned this distinction through her many years of extraordinary teaching, mentoring, and advising.”
 
“I am very honored to receive this award, especially because teaching is incredibly challenging,” Burkhart said. “It’s also incredibly rewarding to watch my students progress in school and in their careers.”
 
Burkhart, a nationally recognized expert in real estate law, joined the Law School faculty in 1982 and has been recognized as the Stanley V. Kinyon Overall Teacher of the Year five times. In announcing the Graduate-Professional Award, the University provost’s office noted, “Ann Burkhart has taught more than 5,000 students with rigor, passion, and care. She requires students to dig deeply into the course materials and to focus on the larger context. The students are inspired by her passion for the law and for their progress, and they benefit from her generous mentoring. According to a former student, she inspires learners to ‘look beyond technical and legal analysis and think deeply about what is practical and equitable.’”
 
Those University professors who receive the Graduate and Professional Teaching Award—along with those who win the Morse-Alumni Award, which recognizes excellence in undergraduate teaching—become members of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers, and they have conferred upon them the title “Distinguished University Teaching Professor.” The Academy functions as a forum through which its members provide important leadership to the University community, serving as mentors, advisors, and spokespersons for the University’s teaching mission.
 
Professor Burkhart and her fellow 2016 honorees will be recognized at a special awards ceremony, to be held Tuesday, April 26, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the McNamara Alumni Center on the East Bank Campus.