Brodkin, Stumpf Named Top Teachers

Each year, students from the College of Arts and Sciences and Lewis & Clark Law School reflect on the extraordinary teaching of their respective professors and select one for top teaching honors.

Kimberly Brodkin: Undergraduate Teacher of the Year

Kimberly BrodkinThis spring, students in the College of Arts and Sciences named Kimberly Brodkin Teacher of the Year. Brodkin is director of both the Gender Studies Symposium and the Ray Warren Symposium on Race and Ethnic Studies as well as an assistant professor with term of humanities.

Brodkin, who joined Lewis & Clark in 2002, specializes in gender and politics in the 20th-century United States. She holds a BA in history from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in U.S. and women’s history from Rutgers University.

“Beyond teaching in the Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies Programs—and being the faculty advisor for two out of the four academic symposia on campus each year—Kim is passionately driven to engage in dialogues about important topics and guide students with support and critical thought through difficult conversations,” writes one student nominator. “She is dedicated, intentional, compassionate, and will do anything to look out for her students. Every day, she pushes herself and her students to do more and be better, and she makes Lewis & Clark a more accountable and better place for everyone.”

Juliet Stumpf: Law School’s Leo Levenson Award

Juliet StumpfJuliet Stumpf, Robert E. Jones Professor of Advocacy and Ethics, won the law school’s Leo Levenson Award for excellence in teaching. She has published widely on crimmigration law, the intersection of immigration and criminal law. Stumpf seeks to illuminate the study of immigration law with interdisciplinary insights from sociology, psychology, criminology, and political science. She earned her JD cum laude from Georgetown University.

Stumpf had no plans to attend law school until an overseas trip to Ecuador changed her mind. While working with a human rights organization there, she learned how children had undergone torture by the secret police as a form of crime control. “Law seemed to me the only thing powerful enough to restrain that kind of unbridled exercise of government power,” she says. 

After graduating from law school, Stumpf worked in a variety of settings, including a law firm, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Ninth Circuit. Ultimately, she decided to become a law professor. “I turned to academia because it combined so many things that I love: teaching; writing; creativity; and collaboration with inspired, motivated students and advocates.”