After four years of teaching as a part-time lecturer at Rutgers University’s School of Communication and Information (SC&I), as I prepare to transition into a new full-time job at Pace University – Pleasantville next fall, the Journalism and Media Studies department surprised me with the 2018 Roger Hernandez Memorial Part-Time Faculty Award!

Well. Sort of surprised me. If being subtly encouraged to attend SC&I’s annual Honors Day this year, for once, counts as a surprise.

The Roger Hernandez Memorial Part-Time Faculty Award is given on Honors Day to recognize “distinguished achievement as a part-time lecturer”; I was recognized for both my work as a PTL and as a teaching assistant before that.

Maybe even better than winning the award, though, was how I was introduced: with metaphors about corpse shrouds and eclectic, glowing student comments across all of my evaluations.