Photo of Professor Barbara Lentz
Posted: March 28th, 2018 | By: Annie Calfo
Professor Barbara Lentz has been awarded the Wake Forest University Spring 2018 Innovation Teaching Award for her efforts to bring innovation and real-world application of law to the classroom. Professor Lentz will be among those recognized at a reception and celebration for the 2018 Innovative Teaching Award recipients at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, April 17, 2018, in the Teaching and Learning Collaborative Faculty Lounge of ZSR Library.
The Innovation Teaching Award recognizes the effort put forth by faculty who have redesigned their courses or introduced new courses with innovative, research-based approaches to the practice of teaching, using new methods and/or technologies, with an intentional emphasis on how these innovations improved or facilitated student learning. Along with high prestige and honor, the award recipients receive $1,000 to recognize their hard work and help them continue to drive a high level of innovative excellence within their departments.
In addition to Professor Lentz, Hana Brown from the Sociology Department, Christy Buchanan and the FYE 101 Team from the Office of the Dean of the College, T.H.M. Gellar-Goad and Amy Lather from Classical Languages, and Yasuko Takata Rallings and Qiaona Yu from the East Asian Languages and Cultures Department were also awarded the Spring 2018 Innovative Teaching Award.
Professor Lentz has taught more than 10 courses in her 15 years with the law school and is also the 2013 winner of the Jurist Excellence in Teaching Award, according to her bio. She consistently stresses experiential learning and integrating substantive knowledge with practical application to help her students prepare for modern legal practice.
In addition to teaching, Professor Lentz has served as the law school’s transfer student adviser for 13 years. She also advises the Journal of Business & Intellectual Property Law (JBIPL) as well as coaches national moot court teams. She was selected by Wake Forest University to serve as a Senior Faculty Fellow in the College and by the Institute for Public Engagement (now the Pro Humanitate Institute) as an ACE Fellow (2012-13) for experiential learning and service to the community.
Professor Lentz also has strong ties to service in the community. She works with the Wake Forest School of Business MA in Management experiential learning program as the class Action Learning Project partner and has taught in the Wake Forest University Nonprofit Essentials Program in both Charlotte and Winston-Salem to improve management, operations, and services of nonprofit entities in the state. She has served on the board of the Winston-Salem Symphony since 2012, is a member of the National Advisory Council for Reynolda House Museum of American Art, and is a graduate and participant of Leadership Winston-Salem. She also co-founded a nonprofit agency, Forsyth Backpack Inc. that partners with the local food bank in providing supplemental food to children in more than 25 Forsyth County public schools while raising awareness and funds to fight chronic childhood hunger.
