UM-Flint's Lois Matz Rosen Award Challenges 'Publish or Perish' Culture

In academia's high-stakes world of research grants and publication counts, teaching can sometimes take a back seat. But at the University of Michigan-Flint, one award stands as a powerful counter-narrative to the "publish or perish" mentality that can dominate higher education.

The Dr. Lois Matz Rosen Junior Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award, established in 2003, recognizes professors who prioritize what brought most of them to academia in the first place: the transformative power of teaching.

"I decided that endowing a junior faculty teaching award would be the perfect way to carry forward the love of teaching that has always been of such high value to me throughout my life," said Lois Matz Rosen, who taught English at UM-Flint for more than 20 years and was the founding director of the Thompson Center for Learning and Teaching.

Rosen's path to creating the award began when she was a first-generation college student from Philadelphia who revered her teachers. After a brief, unfulfilling stint in social work, a friend, who was very much enjoying her third year as a high school English teacher, invited her to spend a day in a classroom. "I felt that I belonged there," Rosen said. She took a position teaching high school English at age 21 and never looked back.

After joining UM-Flint in 1984, Rosen watched as the pressure to publish increasingly overshadowed teaching excellence. During the 1996-97 academic year, she chaired the Provost's Task Force on Teaching, which recommended creating a junior faculty teaching award to demonstrate the importance UM-Flint placed on good teaching and to motivate them to prioritize teaching despite pressure to focus on research.

When the recommendation remained unfunded for years, Rosen endowed the award herself upon retirement.

Jeyoung Oh, assistant professor of communication studies, is the 2025 recipient. "I like to share with people what I've learned through my academic and professional experiences," she said. "I pursued my Ph.D. because I enjoyed research but also teaching—preparing people for the future."

Oh's teaching philosophy centers on three pillars: student-centered classrooms, connecting theory to practice, and inclusivity. Her approach became particularly vital when she joined UM-Flint in fall 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many instructors struggled with online teaching, Oh excelled in the digital environment.

Cecilia Warchol, a 2023 UM-Flint graduate with a bachelor's degree in communication studies, took four of Oh's courses and witnessed her digital adeptness firsthand. "Her recorded class lectures were authentic and appeared as if she spent considerable time crafting material that was easy to follow while offering challenging discussion questions," Warchol wrote in her letter of recommendation. "During live Zoom courses, she encouraged conversation and reminded us how best to reach her if we needed additional support—and she genuinely meant it."

Oh's commitment to practical learning extends beyond the digital classroom. She teaches courses in public relations, advertising and social media, incorporating partnerships with businesses including the Traverse City Spitters baseball team, the Flint City Bucks soccer team, and Detroit-area legal firms.

For Warchol, this approach proved transformative. "Nothing says more about the quality of an instructor than their ability to take course material and make it relevant to today's professional world," she wrote. "I was prepared to enter a new career because Professor Oh provided assignments that I would see in my everyday work."

Recent communication studies graduate Peyton Ward had a similar experience. "Any time her classes came up, I made sure to take them," Ward said. After transferring to UM-Flint as a business major with an eye toward a career in sports, Oh's classes "opened my eyes to different areas of communication. I could see how it all connected and how to apply them to a sports journalism career."

What stands out most to students is Oh's accessibility. "She's very available for one-on-one conversations," Ward said. "Having the reassurance that she'll be there when you need it makes it easier to reach out."

For Oh, receiving the award validates her teaching philosophy. "This award confirms what I believe—that student engagement really matters," she said. "It's a reminder to keep doing what matters, keep developing, and keep creating more impact."

But the success stories extend well beyond this year's recipient. "Every single one of the faculty who has received the award has become an associate professor, and many have already become full professors," Rosen said, proof that prioritizing teaching doesn't derail careers but enhances them.

For Rosen, these stories represent the realization of a decades-old vision. "What I hoped for was to stimulate a generation of teacher-scholars who were equally committed to their classrooms and their scholarship," she said. "As academia continues to grapple with the balance between research and teaching, this award stands as a reminder that the two need not be in conflict, that teaching and research go hand in hand, supporting and enhancing one another."