Jodi S. Finkel, associate professor of political science, is the 2009 winner of the Fritz B. Burns Distinguished Teaching Award, LMU’s most prestigious teaching honor awarded each year by President Fr. Robert B. Lawton, S.J.
Finkel is known as an innovator in the classroom. In her Overcoming Poverty class she begins working students six months prior to the start of class to discover their individual research interests and career goals so that she can then establish compatible internships with Los Angeles-based nonprofits. She is a professor who strives to make a difference in her students’ lives and in the lives those students may touch in the world beyond LMU.
“In my own classroom, I attempt to ask my students the burning questions that will send them on a life-long journey. . . . You never know which question will dance endlessly at the back of a student’s mind or beat tirelessly at the center of a student’s heart,” said Finkel explaining her teaching philosophy.
Michael O’Sullivan, interim dean of Bellarmine College, praised Finkel’s work and noted that, “students consistently attest to how her courses have transformed their thinking and challenged them to become actively involved in social justice issues. Prof. Finkel spends time with her students, fostering their individual growth, provoking not only intellectual change but life transformation through her mentoring. There is no other faculty member in the college who has shepherded students to consistently achieve such high levels of recognition and acclaim outside the university.”
A stellar example of her inspirational leadership is the nonprofit MuJER. With Finkel’s encouragement and support, Ana Moraga and Tania Torres, two of her students, founded it as a small literacy project in Guatemala City for about 30 female sex workers. It has since expanded into an organization that serves and empowers over 200 women, through computer training, vocational classes, and programs dealing with self-esteem, human rights, and domestic violence. Finkel is now the president of MuJER’s board of directors.
Finkel earned her B.A. (1989), Master of Political Science (1996), and Ph.D. (2001) from the University of California, Los Angeles. She also earned a Master of International Affairs in 1992 from the University of California, San Diego. She began teaching at LMU in 2001.