LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 17, 2024) — The University of Kentucky Alumni Association started the Great Teacher Award program in 1961 to honor excellent teaching at the university. There have been more than 300 teachers honored since that first year. Nominations may only be submitted by current students.

To receive the award, a candidate must:

• Hold the rank of full-time lecturer or above and have been a member of the faculty for the past three years at UK.
• Have superior knowledge of the subject matter.
• Have original and innovative classroom presentations.
• Demonstrate concern for students, both inside and outside the classroom setting.
• Not have been a recipient of the award for the past 10 years.

A committee of the UK Alumni Association Board of Directors and a representative from the student organization Omicron Delta Kappa select the recipients based on objective rating and ranking of the eligible nominations submitted.

This episode of “Behind the Blue” spotlights one of the six Great Teacher Award winners for 2024: Zada Komara, a lecturer in the Lewis Honors College.

An affiliate faculty member in the Appalachian Studies program and the Department of Anthropology, Komara teaches interdisciplinary social science, material culture, archaeology of the recent past, Appalachia, oral history and the social impacts of pseudoscience.

Her research focuses on archaeologies of gender, race and class and their intersection with the consumer revolution in Appalachian coal towns and on modern material culture studies on UK’s campus. She administers the UK Appalachian Center’s Coal Camp Documentary Project, a collaborative documentation effort focusing on company coal towns in Kentucky’s 54 Appalachian counties.

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