Professor Tom Hawkins has been awarded an Ohio State Ronald and Deborah Ratner Distinguished Teaching Award, which supports and rewards innovation in both concept and execution in undergraduate teaching. Professor Hawkins is one of 5 winners of a $10,000 cash bonus and a $10,000 grant to spend on an innovative teaching program. 

Tom Hawkins has excelled in teaching large undergraduate lecture courses as well as small undergraduate and graduate seminars.  He describes himself as animated by an abiding conviction that studying classics is an essential component of “adept and empowered” citizenship, with a related commitment to encouraging students to see how such study is relevant to understanding and critiquing our own historical moment. He has developed a number of courses that explicitly work to create thematic connections to contemporary issues in science, globalization and racial understanding. He intends to use his Ratner award to help enhance his classical mythology course and launch a new course on Black Cultures and Classical Education.