(CLAIR) – Helen Ahn Lim, a professor at California Lutheran University, has been awarded the 2022 President’s Award for Teaching Excellence – the highest teaching honor at the university. Lim, who is chair of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department, received the award on April 26th during Honors Convocation. This award, created in 1995, recognizes professors who are highly respected by their students, peers, and the university community.
Lim is passionate about helping her students learn by serving the community. She helps them develop service-learning projects that benefit local organizations, such as the Ventura County Rescue Mission and Ventura County Probation Agency. In addition, as a former director of the university’s Center for Academic Service Learning, Lim has helped other faculty members incorporate experiential learning opportunities into their classes.
Lim is an expert in hate crimes and human trafficking and has worked closely with Zoe International, an anti-child trafficking organization. She has shared her criminological knowledge with the group and even traveled to Thailand as an invited instructor for a police training seminar during her sabbatical. Lim has also invited trafficking victims and experts to her classes, organized events for Cal Lutheran and the broader community, and helped students intern with Zoe.
Lim has supported students and faculty and created teaching moments outside the classroom since arriving at Cal Lutheran in 2005. This was especially evident in fall 2018 when the Criminology and Criminal Justice department faced a number of challenges, including the death of recent alumnus Justin Meek during the Borderline shooting.
“As a professor, much of my time may include organizing the contents of my lecture and in careful and meticulous lesson-planning,” said Lim in accepting the award. “However, I have come to realize and appreciate that some of our most important lessons are unscripted and messy, come in unwanted or unwelcome ways, and are even presented to us through very difficult challenges.”
