Dr. Rudolf Brutoco Award for Distinguished Teaching

Nomination deadline for 2025 91ֱ��-26 Academic Year: May 11, 2026

The Dr. Rudolf Brutoco Award for Distinguished Teaching recognizes faculty who have fulfilled the promise shown in their earlier years by maintaining, and even growing further, in their capabilities in the classroom and other pedagogic activities. These faculty are outstanding year-after-year for a period of 8-15 years. Through their efforts and example, they improve the quality of education at Santa Clara University not just for their own students but also for their departments and for the University community as a whole.

Impactful teaching within their classrooms and programs may be recognized by:

Inventive, spirited, creative approaches to in-class and out-of-class assignments, curricula, and program design;
Remarkable initiative, energy, innovation and/or ongoing evolution of their teaching methods;
Widespread appreciation by their students, including an awareness that the particular classes taught by this faculty member are special, highly sought and valuable;
Assessment is fair, consistent, and contributes to the students’ learning.
A stellar reputation; these awardees are held in high regard by other faculty;
Demonstrated dedication to the teaching profession, and to the students themselves.

All continuing undergraduate faculty with 8-15 years of full-time undergraduate teaching are eligible for this award. Nominated faculty who do not win will remain eligible and nomination materials will be preserved in faculty award files for three years. Materials received for one award may support nominations across teaching awards.

Nomination and Selection Process

Nominations will be solicited from undergraduate students, recent alumni, and faculty each spring. The award selection committee –comprised of two undergraduate students, two alumni, and at least one previous recipient of each of the teaching awards, with the Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence as ex officio– will review nomination letters received through the single teaching award submission portal, combined with any nomination letters received in the past three years, and evaluate them against the award criteria to identify their recommended award recipient. Again, there is one award, and there should only be one recipient, except in extraordinary circumstances.

2026 Winner
Jessica Kuczenski, Engineering

Professor Jes Kuczenski is a compassionate, engaged, and selfless teacher and one who is doing important work advancing our SCU mission. In both her role as regular faculty member since 2014 and her current position advising students in the School of Engineering, Professor Kuczenski has had a deep and abiding impact on her students.

Across over 20 letters, what comes through most is that she meets students exactly where they are, whether an undocumented student who could not see a future in her desired career path, a struggling transfer who wandered in looking for guidance and stayed for years, or a first-generation Latina student who needed someone to believe in her.

Her influence as a teacher, a Department Chair, and an Associate Dean is unusually broad, with multiple faculty colleagues crediting her with making them better educators, too. Professor Kuczenski has a deep well of glowing letters of support and is a wonderful role model as a teacher-scholar, highlighting the transformative role of advising as a teaching practice alongside traditional classroom instruction.