WWU instructor wins Eleanor Roosevelt Global Citizenship Award

Western Washington University Anthropology Department senior instructor Kathleen Saunders has been awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Global Citizenship Award.

Named to honor the 20th century’s “First Lady of the World,” the award recognizes Saunders’ effective participation in the Center for Public Anthropology’s Community Action Online Project, as well as her wider activities in the public sphere.

Less than one percent of the faculty teaching introductory anthropology courses across North America receives the award.

“(Saunders) is to be commended for how she takes classroom knowledge and applies it to real-world challenges, thereby encouraging students to be responsible global citizens,” said Rob Borofsky, director of the Center for Public Anthropology, in the award announcement. “In actively addressing important ethical concerns within anthropology, Saunders is providing students with the thinking and writing skills needed for active citizenship.”

Shortly after arriving at WWU in 2000, she was invited to become a Service Learning Faculty Fellow. She took the education practices she learned from the program and applied it to her teaching of Economic Anthropology by incorporating projects around hunger and food insecurity to make the connections between local conditions and global processes.

Saunders also received the WWU College of Humanities and Social Sciences’ 2009-2010 Ronald Kleinknecht Excellence in Teaching Award.

For more information, contact Kathleen Saunders, senior instructor in WWU’s Anthropology Department, at (360) 650-4789, or kathleen.saunders@wwu.edu.