2024 Faculty Annual Teaching Excellence Awards

Congratulations to Associate Professor Sandra Booysen LLM ’03 PhD ’09, Assistant Professor Benny Tan ’12, Assistant Professor Tan Weiming, Lecturer Samantha Tang ’14, Professor Umakanth Varottil PhD ’10, Associate Professor Helena Whalen-Bridge LLM ’02 and Lecturer Benjamin Wong ’15 on being awarded the Faculty-level Annual Teaching Excellence Award for 2024!

The award is given by NUS Law to recognise faculty members who have demonstrated a high level of commitment to teaching.

Following the Start of Term Welcome lunch on 15 January, at which Professor Andrew Simester, the Dean of NUS Law, presented the awards, we spoke to some of them—many of whom have won the award multiple times—to learn their perspectives on what it means to be an educator, and how they strive to make a difference in helping students learn.

Lecturer Benjamin Wong said, “I am grateful to have received this award. As a law educator, I aim to equip students with the cognitive tools that will help them to succeed in their future legal (or non-legal) work. It brings me satisfaction to observe my students grow in their competence and confidence, and that motivates me to keep improving as well. From a broader perspective, I strive for a mutually-supportive relationship between my teaching and my research, and I believe that each can inform the other.”

As for Assistant Professor Tan Weiming, he spoke candidly about the ways he strives to make the content of his courses relatable. He shares, “I teach two compulsory modules—Equity and Trusts, and Property Law—that are notoriously difficult to instruct and learn. To make the learning process less intimidating, I try to make the subjects relatable, and I do so in three ways. First, when introducing legal concepts, I construct real-life examples, and invite students to think about the legal response should they end up in those situations. Besides giving them an opportunity to evaluate the state of positive law, these thought experiments also allow students to appreciate the visceral impact of what they are learning.

“Second, I try to use memes to illustrate legal principles. Such memes inject humour into the classroom and make the principles more memorable to students. Third, I read autobiographies of judges to gain a better perspective of the judicial process. When teaching landmark cases, I share with students the behind-the-scenes deliberations and quibbles amongst members of the court. This brings the cases alive and reflects a more human touch to them. Students are reminded that the law is not decided in a cold and detached manner, and that these esteemed judges, just like anyone else, have emotions and reservations as well.”