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| Alumni Association Home > 2008-09 Graduate and Professional Award Recipients | ||||||||
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Professor
Department of Geography and the Institute for Global Studies
College of Liberal Arts
University of Minnesota Twin Cities
“Perhaps even more than the books and articles we write, it is the students we teach and mentor, carrying living traditions of scholarship into the future, that are our lasting legacy.”
Geography professor Helga Leitner not only is “an inspiring teacher” but also “has created a vibrant international intellectual community and support network.” Apart from mentoring students in a wide variety of fields, she has played an important role in the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change, working with graduate students from all over the world. One advisee describes Leitner as “extremely demanding and tirelessly committed to her students, always pushing for greater depth, precision, and creativity, but simultaneously providing support, reassurance, and guidance.” That support stretched across the ocean for another student in South Africa who was trying to finish a dissertation.
Students describe Leitner’s courses as “exciting,” “motivating,” “engaging,” and “thought provoking.” A former graduate student writes, “Any graduate course that Helga is involved in will undertake an exhaustive exploration of current research and relevant literature in that area.”
One student who took two of Leitner’s graduate seminars described her as being a “full participant in discussion, but [she] did not lead the students to a preordained position or conclusion.” She also writes, “I had the impression that Helga simultaneously knew the material inside-out and that she was reading it for the first time.” A former student who is now teaching at the college level found in Leitner a mentor “passionate about her research and teaching, but also one who cares deeply about graduate students.”