Congratulations to Assistant Professor Spyridon Kotsovilis, recipient of the 2023-24 Cheryl Regehr Early Career Teaching Award

We are delighted to announce that Assistant Professor, Spyridon Kotsovilis is a recipient of the 2023-24 Cheryl Regehr Early Career Teaching Award. This award recognizes faculty members who demonstrate an exceptional commitment to student learning, pedagogical engagement and teaching innovation.

Professor Spyridon Kotsovilis is Assistant Professor, Teaching Steam in the Department of Political Science (Mississauga) since 2021, and an associate graduate faculty member at the Munk School of Global Affairs. Prior to that, he taught at McGill and the University of Toronto (Scarborough and St. George).  

Professor Kotsovilis believes excellent teaching should be captivating, motivating and transformative. Towards this goal, he uses a variety of novel and engaging teaching and learning approaches. These have included in-class team debates and collaborative work paired with visiting guest experts on International Law, a student performative reading of an ancient tragedy on war, exercises linked to literary works and popular culture on archival and ethnographic research methods, and a special virtual roundtable with Indigenous legal scholars from law schools across Canada. His classes are multimodal and employ creative and fun assignments, as well as music, literature, and videos related to the topics presented, and podcasts based on student questionnaires.  

Professor Kotsovilis recently participated in the development and launching of the tri-campus Global Leadership program. He has been the inaugural instructor for its introductory course, and during his time at U of T he has designed and developed numerous courses. He has been disseminating his work in journals and conferences where he has also held workshops on innovative pedagogies, and since 2018 he has received multiple teaching recognitions ranging from his department to the Faculty of Arts & Science. His work has been supported by various department, division, university and provincial educational grants.