A liberal arts education is uniquely capable of preparing today’s students for lives of engaged citizenship in a rapidly changing global society. Puget Sound is known for its exceptional teaching faculty, a critical element of a challenging and rewarding educational experience.
The Puget Sound President’s Excellence in Teaching Award was established by former trustee Hal Eastman ’60 and his wife, Jacque ’61, to recognize faculty members who demonstrate exceptional teaching skills, independent of accomplishments in scholarship, research, or publication. Recipients are selected for their genuine passion for teaching, an ability to inspire students to learn, a capacity to set high expectations and challenge students to meet them, a respect for students as individuals, an enduring intellectual curiosity, and the capacity for growth, change, and vitality in the classroom and beyond.
Andrew Gomez (2023)
Associate Professor of History
Andrew joined the faculty of Puget Sound in 2015 and teaches on matters related to U.S. immigration, the history of Latinos in the United States, and public history. Andrew's dedication to students is seen through his focus on creating “an open, engaging classroom that also sets high standards for collective work”. This fall Andrew is on sabbatical working on a manuscript centered on early Cuban communities in South Florida and we are all looking forward to reading his work.
Andrew’s scholarship has had quite the impact on students and their worldviews. One recent student describes how life changing their class with Andrew was, saying it served to “re-orient a person’s worldview to see people instead of political constructs.” They even went on to say that the class should be required to graduate.
