A faculty member from the UW–Madison School of Education has been named among the recipients of the campus-wide 2026 Distinguished Teaching Awards.
Colleen Conroy, assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Drama, received the Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Teaching Award, one of 13 honors recognizing outstanding teaching across the university.
Conroy’s teaching focuses on voice, identity, and inclusion, encouraging students to explore their own voices and incorporate heritage languages into performance.
“Conroy believes voice training is inseparable from identity,” her award recognition read. “She does not ask students to neutralize their accents or take on someone else’s voice. Instead, she guides them in exploring how their own voices work — and what it means to be heard — across language and culture.”
Erica Halverson, chair of the Department of Theatre and Drama, lauded the connections Conroy has built with “students, partners in public health, art therapy, game design, counseling psychology, and speech-language pathology.”
“She has leveraged those connections to strengthen her own teaching and to bring her expertise to communities that would otherwise not have access to arts-based approaches,” Halverson said.
The awards ceremony will take place on April 15 at 5 p.m. in the Great Hall of Memorial Union.