Noora Lori Awarded Gitner Family Prize for Faculty Excellence
Noora Lori, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, has been awarded the School’s first Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family Prize for Faculty Excellence.
Lori will be presented with the award’s commemorative silver plate at the Pardee School Convocation Ceremony on Saturday, May 16 at the Walter Brown Arena.
“I am honored to be recognized for my teaching and service to the Pardee School and its mission,” said Lori. “More importantly, I am deeply grateful for the opportunities I was given this year to actually engage in teaching and service to the School.”
The Gitner Family Prize for Faculty Excellence was endowed by the Gitner Family in 2014. The Gitner Prize honors teaching and mentoring excellence and is awarded each year to a faculty member who embodies the School’s mission to advance human progress. The prize also includes a cash award. Pardee School Dean Adil Najam said that “the generosity of the Gitner family and the establishment of this award has allowed the School to recognize what Boston University and those now in the Pardee School have always valued highly – good teaching, mentorship, and service.”
Noora Lori joined the Pardee School of Global Studies as an Assistant Professor of International Relations in Fall 2014. In her first year, Lori co-organized a major international conference on Youth in the Contemporary Muslim World, launched a task force on forced migration and human trafficking, supervised five Masters theses, served on two additional undergraduate honors thesis committees, was an active participant in the activities of more than one regional center, and served as a mentor for a range of graduate and undergraduate student activities.
“My contributions in teaching were only possible because of the students who were willing to take risks and enroll in courses that did not have years of previous course evaluations; because of graduate students who were eager to engage a new faculty mentor for thesis advising even without first taking any classes with her,” Lori said. “Their passion is infectious, and I was constantly surprised by how thoughtful their presentations, papers and discussions could be, and I just how much I learned from them, when I came in assuming it was going to be the other way around.”
Lori’s teaching and research focuses on the political economy of migration, the development of security institutions, and national identity systems. She earned her BA from Northwestern University and holds a Masters and a PhD from Johns Hopkins University.
Dean Adil Najam said that “although there were a number of very strong nominations – which is testimony to the breadth of excellent teaching at the Pardee School – the selection committee had been unanimously impressed by Prof. Lori’s accomplishment and enthusiasm in her very first year at Boston University. She is amongst a cohort of exceptionally talented and dedicated teachers that we are lucky to have in our younger faculty.”
Lori’s students also described her as supportive, helpful, accessible, knowledgeable, and encouraging. The involvement of students in the conference she organized was described as “amazing” and “refreshing.”
Lori expressed gratitude for the contributions and wisdom of her colleagues.
“As a junior faculty member I was only able to partake in service to the School because I joined a faculty with a strong sense of identity and a clear vision for producing research that is driven by real world questions and long-term sustainable solutions,” Lori said. “My colleagues—both senior and junior— had already created a consensus-driven supportive and nourishing environment for me to join. They empowered me to have the resources and support to convene events in service to the school’s mission. Without that leap of faith, I would have never have been given the opportunity to rise to the occasion.”