Global Teaching Fellows Program: Reflections from 2022 Fellow Sara Shaker Rizkallah

August 2, 2022

*This article is an excerpt from the Center for Teaching and Learning Summer 2022 newsletter. 

The CEU Global Teaching Fellows Program (GTFP) provides opportunities for advanced doctoral candidates and recent doctoral graduates to teach at partner universities for one semester or one academic year. This year, the CTL and the OSUN Developing Teaching Professionals project were thrilled to mentor 21 CEU fellows, who taught at partner institutions across the GTFP network. 

We connected with Sara Shaker Rizkallah who was a Global Teaching Fellow at Arizona State University (USA) in Winter 2022. Sara is a PhD candidate in Sociology and Anthropology at CEU and Assistant Lecturer in Political Science Department at the British University in Egypt. 

What attracted you to the Global Teaching Fellows Program? What were you most hoping to improve in terms of your teaching practice?   

As someone who already had teaching experience for almost 11 years, I did not have any opportunity to teach international students. The Global Teaching Fellowship provided a platform where I was able to educate and interact with a diverse group of students, coming from Ireland, United States, Syrians, Lebanese, as well as Sudanese, if not more. While I was looking forward to enhancing my academic skills, the GTFP offered me a lot: working together with Yurgos Georgios Politis has been an amazing journey, where he has always offered his guidance for preparing the course designs, to developing an interesting syllabus, to assessment, feedback and marking. I really cannot thank him enough from everything, particularly the late meetings due to the time difference in the United States. 

What were you most excited about in relation to the GTFP? 

Designing and teaching a course about Middle Eastern politics to a diverse group of American students as well as the rankings of Arizona State University in the United States.  

Could you describe your experience at your host institution?  

I cannot say anything except "Awesome." My colleagues in the Melikian Center at Arizona State University have been truly an amazing family for me while I was based in Phoenix. Thank you, Irina Levin, Marina Akins, and David Brokaw.  

What advice would you give to future Global Teaching Fellows?   

Always be open and prepared to learn from your students. It is a two-way process. I learnt a lot about Assyrians, a group I did not know anything about before. 

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Are you interested in becoming a fellow during the next academic year? Learn more about the GTFP and GTF Mentoring Program. Inquires can be directed to gtfp@ceu.edu. 

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